A strong and capable civil society strengthens trust and social cohesion in communities and helps people work together to advance their communities’ development and recovery. This is one of the findings of our Community Development Success Index research and an important focus of the U-RESTORE project. Together with Cowater Ukraine, we are working to ensure that local civil society organizations and community initiatives have greater capacity, tools, and opportunities to shape the development of their communities and contribute to recovery efforts.
One of these tools is mentoring support. Over the summer, six experts met with 20 civil society organizations and four community initiative groups across communities in Dnipropetrovsk and Zhytomyr oblasts. During the meetings, mentors worked with the teams to identify their strengths, needs, and areas for growth. Based on these discussions, each organization developed an individual organizational development plan. “Some things we already understood, while others were a real eye-opener — we simply hadn’t paid enough attention to them before. The self-assessment helped us identify areas for growth and understand what we should focus on next,” said a representative of the NGO All Flowers Should Grow from Zhovti Vody, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.
For initiative groups in Luhyny, Ruzhyn, and Krynychky, the mentoring also focused on the transition from an informal initiative group to a formally registered civil society organization. “It is important to maintain ongoing support for these initiative groups so that their journey from an informal team to a civil society organization becomes a story of organizational growth and the development of local initiative,” said mentor Iryna Tkachenko, speaking about the Berehyni Ridnoho Kraiu initiative group.
Through mentoring support, we are strengthening those already taking action in their communities — helping organizations build their internal capacity, develop partnerships with local authorities and residents, and play a more active role in decisions that shape their communities' future.
The U-RESTORE project is implemented by Cowater Ukraine in partnership with ISAR Ednannia and the Ukrainian Women’s Fund, with financial support from Global Affairs Canada.
