Urgent appeal to help to raise funds for NGO Molotok in Transcarpathia, Ukraine

NGO Molotok was established as a cultural organisation that organises workshops and access to high quality arts for children and young people in rural areas of Transcarpathia. NGO Molotok and their volunteer Leader and head of organisation Tatjana Bielousova has been running youth and theatre activities in the area for over 15 years including organising annual international theatre festival for children and young people in the area. The organisation also rents a guest house Sargo Rigo that has 26 beds, that have been using it as a base for workshops and different cultural programmes. 

Following the full scale Russian invasion on 24th of February, NGO Molotok began providing shelter, food and psychological support to a group of young people, children and young families from Eastern part of Ukraine.

After more than six months of providing residential support, Sargo Rigo has been temporarily closed for much needed maintenance, and the families have settled elsewhere in the region. Tatjana and the NGO Molotok team want to utilise their extensive experience providing art therapy to improve the lives of young people and displaced artists in Ukraine.

For local residents, NGO Molotok will offer art lessons in four villages of Khust district, Transcarpathia. Led by local teachers and displaced Ukrainian artists, the sessions will offer a creative outlet for young people aged 7-18, while also supporting the assimilation of children who have relocated from other areas of Ukraine since the war began.

Once repairs were completed at Sargo Rigo, NGO Molotok was able to host week-long residential art camps for 9-25 year olds helping young people to develop their creative skills, process the trauma of the war, and look forward to the future.

Your donations will go towards transport and materials, as well as providing employment opportunities for internally displaced people and members of the local community.

Any funds raised before 7 November 2022 were used to provide ongoing support to internally displaced families in the region.

Update April 2024

During the last 6 months, we have intensified our work with children and young people in our community and are finally launching art camps.

Our work is now taking place in two locations: Nyzhnye Selyshche, a village in the Khust region, where we conduct trainings, seminars, camps, and Khust, where we work with young people on a daily basis.

To reach more people, in October 2023, we decided to rent a room in Khust, the regional center, where we started creating a free safe space for children and young people and called it "YO," which means "YES" in the local dialect. "YO" is a place where you can learn, communicate, create, and relax in a safe environment. (https://www.facebook.com/prostirYO)

At present, it offers weekly photo and video creation classes, poi lessons, chess lessons for children under 13, a youth discussion club, meetings for all age groups to weave camouflage nets, which are sent to protect people on the front line, a game library, and a film club.

In addition, a number of trainings were organized in Khust community schools on media literacy and discussion of community issues, a literary and poetic evening, and a photo therapy project STAY STRONG PHOTO STORIES with a photographer from the Netherlands, Karine Zenja Versluis, with the support of Framer Framed and Experience Ukraine and beyond.

In April 2024, we held the first week-long residential workshop meeting with our future colleagues about organizing art therapy camps for children affected by the war. At this meeting, we discussed different aspects of organizing such events together, worked with a psychologist and therapist to determine differences in working and communicating with affected children, developed a program and action plan so that the first camp could be held in June. We are pleased that in such a short time we have managed to reach more than 200 people of all ages and found volunteers who would like to be a part of our project.

Our plans for the next 6 months:

Organizing and conducting at least 4 art camps for children affected by the war in Ukraine

Continuing the activities of the space for young people; establishing cooperation with other NGOs of the Khust community to expand the number of programs in the space

Developing a new direction for working with young mothers and their children, creating a safe place where young parents can communicate and develop with their children

Developing psychological training for artists working with children and young people traumatized by the war in Ukraine.

Please continue to support our work.

Please do not hesitate to contact me- Nataliya Cummings- for more information about this project via my email [email protected] or via 07963090838. Thank you for your generous support!

This fundraiser is hosted and administered by Legacy of War Foundation on behalf of Nataliya Cummings. 100% of the money raised will go to NGO Molotok - we don't take any funds for costs or overheads.