The International Renaissance Foundation has been working with veterans of the Russian-Ukrainian war since 2015. Earlier, in the mid-1990s, the Foundation supported a program to reintegrate military personnel who were dismissed from service after the collapse of the USSR – thousands of former military personnel received assistance. At the end of the 90s, when the program was completed, it seemed that there would be no need to work on reintegrating the military anymore. However, in 2014, the Russian-Ukrainian war broke out.
In 2015, the Foundation launched the New Countdown project, a business incubator for veterans and IDPs that allowed veterans to receive entrepreneurship training and start-up capital for their businesses.
More than a thousand project participants were trained, and about 200 received funds to start a business. At the same time, we supported projects to provide legal support to veterans, helped them obtain the status of combatants, and trained representatives of the state system of free legal aid on how to help veterans solve their most common issues. Since 2019, Renaissance has been cooperating with the Ministry of Veterans and began supporting veterans’ spaces, which formed a coalition in 2021.
If until 2022 the topic of working with veterans was one of many, now it is among the most important for the International Renaissance Foundation.
We talked to Olha Halchenko, manager of the International Renaissance Foundation’s Civil Resilience Program, who works with veterans’ projects, about why it is important to work with veterans of the Russian-Ukrainian war and what initiatives the Foundation supports in this area.
In this article, we will tell you about our initiatives to develop veteran spaces and employ veterans. We will talk about our work with mental health, grief therapy, and recovery of veterans and their families in the next text.
Why it is important to work with veterans
“Veterans are a category of people who simultaneously have very different needs that need to be met: work, education, health, and support for re-adaptation to civilian life. On the other hand, veterans are carriers of strength, activity, passion, and a desire for change and order. They go into politics, civic activism, found movements, unions, organizations,” says Olha.
The Civil Resilience program at the Foundation mainly deals with the topic of working with veterans. The program is based on three pillars: community cohesion, social recovery and human security. The same principles are the basis for working with veterans. After all, if veterans are well reintegrated into communities, this will contribute to greater community cohesion, security and restoration of human capital.
Veterans are people who have gone through many challenges, are able to take responsibility and make decisions. They can be agents of change in their communities, but they also need support and help.
Olha admits that she is also motivated by personal reasons in her work with veterans. “I will have two veterans in my family – my father and my husband. I would really like them to reintegrate into civilian life properly when the time comes to demobilize,” says Olha. “My volunteer experience also has an impact, because since 2014 I have been communicating with military personnel who later became veterans. I’ve seen how their needs changed from thermal imagers and jeeps to “find a way to make a prosthesis” or “find a job.” And I understand what people returning from war really need.”
Development of veteran spaces
Veteran spaces have experienced a cyclical history. They were often created in 2014-2016, when they were volunteer centers that were formed in communities to help their own people at the front. When the first major waves of demobilization began, soldiers returned from the front and the spaces began to address veterans’ issues. In 2019-2021, these were already established public organizations-spaces that provided services for veterans: legal, social, rehabilitation, etc. And after the full-scale invasion, they started working again as volunteer headquarters. However, now they combine these two functions: partly collecting and purchasing the necessary things for soldiers, partly providing services for veterans who often return for health reasons. Often these people have amputations or other forms of disability, so they need special work. Veterans’ spaces can provide all this.
For example, since the beginning of 2023, the Sumy Veterans’ Space has provided services to 6378 veterans and their families. The Khmelnytskyi veterans’ space provided services to 5929 veterans and their families, and the Vinnytsia veterans’ space provided 3209 services to veterans and their families. The spaces are usually funded from the local budget and implement grant projects funded by international donors.
Veterans’ spaces provide legal, psychological, social, and rehabilitation support services, refer veterans to competent authorities and assist them in resolving their issues, and support the families of those who are expecting and those who have lost loved ones. Sports/artistic/entertainment activities are also implemented in the spaces.
But above all, the veterans’ space is a safe place to meet in a circle, agree on joint actions, and communicate effectively with local authorities.
In 2021, the Coalition of Veterans’ Spaces was formed, uniting more than 20 centers, most of which started as volunteer initiatives during the active phase of the ATO/JFO. At the Civil Society Development Forum 2021, the Coalition won the “Joining Forces” nomination of the year.
The Coalition works to coordinate efforts, share experiences and support each other. It also acts as a consolidated voice of the veteran community, advocates for veteran issues at the state level and strengthens the voices of individual veteran spaces at the local level.
The Coalition participates in the work of the coordination headquarters of state and local authorities, and provides support for closed thematic meetings on the topic of veteran policy making. For example, the Coalition advocated for the revision of the draft law on amendments to the Law of Ukraine “On the Status of War Veterans, Guarantees of Their Social Protection,” which helped to stop its adoption.
The NGO “Space of Opportunities”, which coordinates the Coalition of Veteran Spaces, is one of 5 veteran organizations that have written and are promoting a draft state veteran policy, whose advocacy is also supported by the Foundation. This initiative group includes other Foundation grantees: “Principle, Women’s Veterans Movement, and Yurydychna Sotnia.
“The Space of Opportunities also communicates on behalf of the Coalition at the national level, develops joint problem-solving plans, and implements projects to ensure community resilience, social cohesion, and support for veterans.
At the beginning of 2023, with the support of the Foundation, the organization also created the first directory of veterans’ spaces in Ukraine, which collected all the basic information about the existing centers in Ukraine at that time – 28 spaces in 16 regions.
Projects of veteran spaces
Since 2023, within the framework of the joint competition with the European Union “Hold the line”, the Foundation has been providing institutional support to volunteer organizations, including veterans’ spaces in Kyiv, Odesa, Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr and Rivne. We support two more veterans’ spaces in Lviv and Mykolaiv from our own funds.
Almost every veterans’ space has its own niche and topic that they promote and specialize in. For example, the Lviv Veterans’ Space is implementing a project with the Foundation to support the families of missing persons. In Zhytomyr, they provide training for psychologists who work with veterans and their families in villages. Odesa Space is developing leadership and civic awareness among veterans. In Mykolaiv, the Foundation supports the veterans’ space in its work with prisoners of war and their families, as well as those released from captivity. And in Rivne, they focused on working with veterans who have problems with the law, raising the discussion about policies for treating them at the level of the police, prosecutors, and the penitentiary system. A large catalog of veterans’ spaces in Ukraine compiled by Space of Opportunities can be found here.
As the number of veterans grows many times over, there will be more veteran spaces. The Coalition will be able to help new centers, explain how to better organize people and unite the community around them.
Today, veterans’ spaces exist mainly at the level of regional centers. However, the first centers are already appearing at the level of smaller cities, such as Bila Tserkva and Irpin.
The decentralization reform vests significant powers in local communities. The reintegration of veterans also primarily takes place in their communities. The existence of veterans’ spaces in the regions helps local authorities to create effective local programs for veterans and provide quality services. It is important that the experience of creating and operating these spaces is shared with different communities.
Veteran business as a way to reintegration
According to Olga Galchenko, employment is the key to a veteran’s full reintegration. “Economic independence is a key element of reintegration. If a veteran has the opportunity to support himself and his family, we can assume that half of the work on reintegration has already been done,” she says.
Today, 60% of employers already have mobilized employees on their staff. At the same time, half of the surveyed veterans believe that they will need adaptation after returning to work.
Financial independence through employment or own business is one of the key factors in the successful reintegration of veterans. According to data by 2022, more than a third of ATO/JFO veterans wanted to start their own business.
As part of the Holding the Line competition, together with the European Union, we supported the Association of ATO Veteran Entrepreneurs, which helps veterans start their own businesses. The organization maintains a business hotline and provides mentoring support to veterans and their families on how to start a business. The Association also conducts business incubators, has developed its own training program for starting a business, and is actively involved in the development and advocacy of a draft law on veteran business.
Another important partner in this area is the Ukrainian Veterans’ Fund, which the Renaissance Foundation helped to establish. Today, the institution focuses its efforts on supporting veteran businesses and employment of veterans.
The Ukrainian Veterans Foundation has developed a study on the needs and obstacles of veterans in finding employment. It holds regular competitions to support veteran-owned businesses and has already provided about 400 mini-grants for small businesses.
We help the Veteran’s Fund popularize this topic and have supported press tours of veteran-owned businesses so that journalists can make stories and cover how veterans find themselves in civilian life and help communities. We also plan to cooperate with the Ukrainian Veterans Fund on changes to labor legislation. We want to see a legal definition of what constitutes a veteran-owned business and provide such businesses with access to benefits or loan guarantees.
Retraining and employment
However, according to Olha, developing one’s own business should not be the only option for a veteran, as most people will need regular employment. “To tell the truth, not everyone can do business. Startups and incubators are good and necessary, but at the same time, we need to think about how to employ those who will not start their own business, as well as how to work with employers to whom a large number of veterans will return after demobilization,” explains Olha Halchenko.
The NGO “Space of Opportunities” is creating a pilot career development center based on the veterans’ space. In addition, the organization works with employers to promote the idea of employing veterans and works with HR specialists who help veterans.
The Kruk UAV Operator Training Center, with the support of the Foundation, is working to create an online training platform to provide training, adaptation and psychological support for veterans.
It will be an online service that offers both training and retraining, as well as job search for veterans who complete these courses. The first course to be launched will be a retraining course for demobilized veterans in the specialty of UAV operator, with courses for other specialties to follow. Kruk sees its platform as a meeting point for veterans and employers.
Are companies ready to take back all their mobilized employees? Will the space be optimized for them, since some of them will return with disabilities? Are employers ready to invest in social reintegration? These and other questions need to be answered now. After all, the extent to which we as a country can reintegrate veterans into the economy will determine the development and prospects of the whole of Ukraine.
Given the future labor shortage, employers should be interested in the full reintegration of veterans and prepare for their return. This includes building an inclusive environment, training the workforce, and supporting the families of the mobilized. In Olha’s opinion, this, not benefits, should be the basis for legislation on veterans’ employment.
“Our legislation, as if for reasons of caring for veterans, gives them many employment privileges, ranging from additional leave to immunity from layoffs during enterprise reorganization. And this significantly scares off potential employers. We need to think that maybe the happiness is not in the benefits, but in making employers more motivated to hire veterans,” explains Olha Halchenko.
“We strive to develop policies and conditions in which veterans can feel adequate in the environment in which they will work. Both in psychological terms and purely utilitarian ones, such as the ability to go upstairs or to the restroom if an employee has amputated limbs.
What’s next?
War veterans often face difficulties when returning to civilian life. Work and social support are important factors for their stabilization, and the process of reintegration and employment can significantly improve their mental and physical well-being.
Employment or socialization within veterans’ spaces helps veterans to feel part of society rather than an isolated group. This contributes to their social integration and supports stability in society as a whole.
Veterans bring a unique set of skills to society that they acquired during their military service. Their involvement in the workforce helps to utilize these skills in civilian life and contributes to the development of communities and entire sectors of the economy.
The International Renaissance Foundation will continue and deepen its work on employment and reintegration of veterans. After all, this activity is possible only thanks to the heroism and sacrifice of veterans themselves.
