Our project to support the social protection system continues. In April, we held 144 events, including:
- 18 coordination meetings with the management of social protection institutions;
- 15 seminars for employees of social protection institutions (the most popular topics include IDPs’ living allowance, the state program eOselia, and compensation for damaged property);
- 3 workshops on combating burnout for employees of social protection institutions;
- 4 educational and integration activities for internally displaced people;
- 27 activities to develop the capacity of IDP Councils (workshops, training sessions, presentations);
- 4 strategic sessions for IDP Councils;
- 7 presentations of reports and medium-term development plans for the social protection system in communities;
- 13 meetings for communities that needed advice and advocacy in implementing plans for the development of the social protection system;
- 5 workshops on updating social passports of communities;
- 42 coordination meetings with partners.
We were particularly active in working with IDP Councils. One such event took place in Dnipropetrovska Oblast, where our regional team organized a strategic session for the IDP Council under the executive committee of the Pokrov City Council. Tetiana Mamchych, regional coordinator of the project, told us how it went:
“Strategic planning sessions are an important milestone for the IDP Council, which should ideally be the beginning of its activities. The key goal of the session for the IDP Council in Pokrov is to define its functions, taking into account the peculiarities of the community, the level of involvement of displaced persons, and the readiness of local authorities to facilitate the work of the Council. Therefore, the main discussion was related to the search for methods that would help to influence local authorities and facilitate IDPs’ participation in decision-making, adaptation, and integration.
Initially, doubts about their own capabilities prevented the participants from fully engaging in the process. However, thanks to the professionalism of coach Anastasiya Serbina, they found their inner resources, became more active, and identified effective methods of work for the development of the Council.
Among the urgent problems of internally displaced people, the Council members named the lack of housing, jobs, opportunities for retraining based on the needs of the community, and reduced payments for IDPs. During the session, they developed aspects of the strategic and operational plans and identified priority areas of work: housing and employment of IDPs, promoting their integration, and involvement in community life. At the end of the session, the coach was pleasantly surprised by the activity and readiness of the Council members to work on improving their lives in Pokrov, which has become their new home.”
In April, we also provided 2,060 legal consultations to IDPs and affected people and 640 consultations to employees of social protection institutions. The most frequent requests were related to housing issues, IDPs’ housing allowances, and other social benefits.
Scroll through the photos to take a look at the work of our regional teams with communities.
We will continue helping to improve the work of the social protection system in the target communities. We are implementing these initiatives as part of the Supporting the Capacity of the Social Protection System to Register Internally Displaced Persons project with funding from the United Nations Refugee Agency in Ukraine.
