October 2023: working, developing, conquering Europe!

As usual, we are sharing with you the achievements of B50 volunteers over the past month. We also urge everyone to support the activities of our community – physically, informationally, and financially.

Activists from the Clean Up! project worked hard in Moshchun (at many sites), Zahaltsi, and Horenka. Everywhere they dismantled, disassembled, sorted, threw away, in short, eliminated the consequences of the russian invasion in Kyiv region.

This month, Glovo employees helped us clear the rubble. Recently, the company celebrated its 5th birthday, and on this occasion, the most active Glovo employees organized corporate volunteering in Horenka with the help of B50. They helped to dismantle a house that had been directly hit by a russian shell.

Volunteers from Shelters beautified two locations at once.

In Nova Hreblia, we started painting the final room (the largest of the four)! Here we continue the concept of travel, telling about famous tourist locations in the world and Ukraine.

In Borodianka, the transformation of the Kolosochok kindergarten shelter was completed: bright accents were added to the mountain walls, the entrance to the shelter from the street was painted, and signs were hung.

Volunteers of the Growing program have started selecting libraries that will participate in the third stage of the P.AGE project. They are the libraries of the villages of Shandryholove and Khrystoforivka, Bilopillia Gymnasium #5, Ripky and Kozacha Lopan lyceums.

Currently, we purchase books on preferential terms from partner publishers (with discounts of 15-40% off market prices!). Funds for the libraries of these lyceums were donated by caring people from Ukraine and abroad (in particular, teenage volunteers from the United States).

As part of the Fluffy Sunday project, activists of the B50 Care program helped at the Best Friends shelter in Fasova. Here they dismantled all the damaged cages that are currently free. They brought humanitarian aid (food, medicines, antiseptics, old clothes, chemicals, vegetables, fruits, and collars).

In the middle of the month, we had an unscheduled visit to the Вівчарко-прихисток «Вольер #1 (Shepherd’s shelter ” Volier No.1″) in Hlevaha. The shelter asked us to help expand their donkey pen. The volunteers cleared the territory and almost doubled the size of the enclosure. The task is completed, the donkeys are happy.

B50 volunteers also regularly helped at the Dvorniashkam Dom and Dvorniashkam Cats shelters (walking dogs, bringing old clothes for rags, cardboard for “mats,” buckets, food, and goodies).

In October, the B50 case took part in the Creative Communications Academy. During the month, one of the academy’s creative teams worked closely with B50 to develop effective interactive methods of engaging Ukrainians in the recovery and reconstruction process. As a result, they created a presentation and presented it at the academy’s graduation. Thus, the students of the Creative communications academy suggested that B50 launch a multichannel social advertising campaign. Its task is to reach new segments of the target audience and increase the flow of new volunteers to all public initiatives working in the recovery and reconstruction sector. Soon we plan to move on to jointly implementing the ideas we have come up with.

The photo exhibition “Stronger than Bricks” visited Kropyvnytskyi and Khmelnytskyi as part of its nationwide tour, and is currently on display in Dnipro.

The international photo exhibition “Chronicles of the Unknown Superheroes Ukrainians” was exhibited in Geneva! On October 5, on the Place des Nations in front of the UN Headquarters in Europe, one could see the photos that consistently reveal the story of one working day of B50 activists.

In October, the B50 community launched the Crimean Tatar adaptation of the site! You can view it at https://b50.com.ua/qt/. Currently, this version of the B50 website is shortened and contains key information about the community and its projects.

The launch of the Crimean Tatar version of the website is a logical step for B50 as an organization that helps the de-occupied regions. Our citizens in Crimea should already know the communities they can turn to for help after the inevitable liberation of the peninsula, and do so in their native language.

As part of the Country of Volunteers project, blitz interviews with volunteers-defenders and an interview with the administrator of the Shelters project, artist Polina Koruts, were published.

This month, several media stories were published about the activities of the B50 community, in particular:

• a story from Suspilne Kropyvnytskyi about “Stronger than bricks”;
• an article by the Voice of Ukraine about the B50 photo exhibition in Kropyvnytskyi;
• a video by American blogger Davion West about the work of B50 volunteers;
• Podillia NEWS story about “Stronger than bricks” in Khmelnytskyi.

The following interesting events also took place in October:

• published its report for the third quarter of 2023. All reports are available here: https://b50.com.ua/en/documents-en;
• The B50 Restoration program was included in ISAR Ednannia’s “Study of post-war recovery initiatives”  as one of the first initiatives in Kyiv region to start cleaning and restoring the newly liberated communities;
• B50 activists in cooperation with Агентами крові (Agents of Blood) donated blood at the Heart Institute;
• The B50 volunteers had a cultural vacation – they visited the Miras/Heritage exhibition in the Treasury of the National Museum of History of Ukraine and took part in an Ornek workshop, creating personalized amulets on paper using Crimean Tatar ornaments. Afterwards, they had an outdoor picnic.

October was full of work and interesting events for the B50 community, as it always is. More to come, let’s work!