We continue to cooperate with the Ombudsman’s Office, and this year, the institution became one of the Foundation’s strategic partners.
On February 23, we signed a Memorandum of Understanding within the framework of the project “Supporting the Capacity of the Social Protection System to Register Internally Displaced Persons” and agreed on an action plan for 2023. Our Foundation is implementing this project with funding from the UN Refugee Agency in Ukraine.
Throughout 2023, the Foundation will provide organizational and technical support to the Ombudsman’s Office:
- Support monitoring visits to Collective Centers for internally displaced persons (IDPs);
- Provide equipment to outfit the workplaces of regional representatives;
- Support the organization of expert meetings;
- Organize joint information campaigns to reach more than 400,000 IDPs.
Why this partnership is important
For many years, our Foundation has been supporting the social protection system and the ability of communities to meet the needs of the population affected by the hostilities in Ukraine, including IDPs. Joint activities with the Ombudsman’s Office help to strengthen the protection of IDPs’ rights and facilitate their adaptation to new places of residence.
“It is the first six months of staying in a new place that determines how quickly a person integrates into the community and recovers their resources. We are making every effort to ensure that the government can effectively provide assistance to IDPs, including facilitating their adaptation. Unfortunately, despite the systemic change in approaches to protecting the rights of IDPs, they still face situations in which their rights are violated. Nowadays, when the number of internally displaced persons has reached a record high, this problem has become particularly urgent. This prompted us to strengthen our cooperation with the Ombudsman’s Office, as it is this institution that protects human rights in Ukraine and systematically monitors Collective Centers for IDPs,” said Valeriya Vershynina, the Foundation’s legal director and project manager.
The Ombudsman’s Office is full of ideas and actively participates in the Foundation’s proposals related to the protection of IDPs’ rights to ensure systematic cooperation.
Results of the cooperation
- Provided organizational support for the Ombudsman’s Office monitoring visits to places of compact residence of IDPs in the Ivano-Frankivska, Lvivska, and Zhytomyrska oblasts;
- Developed and printed leaflets with useful contacts for the affected population and information on how to get help;
- Created an infographic, “How to get an identity card to return to Ukraine if you are on the territory of the aggressor state without documents”.
A key aspect of the Foundation’s activities is to choose forms of cooperation that will be effective in the long term. By providing organizational support and technical assistance, we ensure that after the project is completed, the resources involved will remain in use and benefit the community.
Have your rights been violated? Contact the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights via a link on our website.