Category: Projects for veterans

The Ukrainian Veterans Foundation describes in detail the procedure for submitting and competitively selecting projects for participation in its competitive programs.

Applicants must follow the established guidelines and requirements of the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation, including filling out the application form and submitting the necessary documents.

Who is eligible to apply for the VARTO Start Your Own Business competition?

• Veterans who are registered as individual entrepreneurs in accordance with the requirements of the law;
• family members of fallen (deceased) war veterans and family members of fallen (deceased) Defenders of Ukraine who are registered as individual entrepreneurs in accordance with the requirements of the law;
• spouses of veterans who are registered as individual entrepreneurs in accordance with the requirements of the law, if the projects are aimed at reintegrating veterans into active social life, ensuring the preservation and restoration of their physical and mental health;
• legal entities (except for public associations and charitable organizations) registered no later than one year prior to submitting an application for participation in the competitive selection, at least one of the founders (participants, owners, shareholders) of which is a veteran or a family member of a fallen (deceased) war veteran, a family member of a fallen (deceased) Defender of Ukraine, or a veteran’s spouse, if the projects are aimed at reintegrating veterans into active social life, ensuring the preservation and restoration of their physical and mental health.

Steps for applicants

Applicants who wish to participate in the competition of the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation must fill out the application form and attach all the necessary documents, the list of which is specified in the instruction.

The application period starts on March 6, 2024.

The deadline for applications is March 18, 2024 (until 23:59 Kyiv time).

After sending the application package through the CRM system of the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation https://uvfproject.com.ua (each document should not exceed 10 MB), the applicant will receive an automatically generated letter with the application number to his or her e-mail. Applications are technically selected within five business days, during which the completeness and compliance of the submitted documents with the established requirements are checked.

If the application package is found to be incomplete, the documents are not properly filled out, false information is provided, or if the application is submitted after the deadline, the applicant will be notified by the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation by e-mail. The applicant has the right to submit corrected documents within five business days after receiving the notification.

Application packages that have successfully passed the technical selection will be submitted for review and expert evaluation in accordance with the evaluation methodology. Experts from the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation will provide recommendations to applicants on project support, implementation mechanisms, terms and amounts of funding.

Experts and evaluations

Expert Councils of the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation are formed for each competitive selection of projects. They consist of experts recommended for inclusion in the councils on the basis of selection that meets the requirements and criteria set forth in the relevant regulations and orders. The quantitative and personal composition of the Expert Councils is approved by the Executive Director or Acting Executive Director of the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation.

The experts of the Expert Councils evaluate the submitted application packages in accordance with the requirements of the Methodology for the Expert Evaluation of Projects and the Guidelines for Applicants. They provide recommendations to applicants on project support, implementation mechanisms, terms and amounts of funding.

Applicants must take into account the recommendations of the experts and the financial department of the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation and submit corrected documents within three business days. An open presentation of the projects is also planned via the Internet.

Based on the assessment of the Expert Council, a list of winning projects will be formed in accordance with the regulations on competitive project selection. The results of the competitive selection will be published on the Foundation’s official website.

You can send your questions and clarifications regarding the submitted application package to uvfprojects@veteranfund.mva.gov.ua with the obligatory indication of the subject line “VARTO Start Your Own Business” and the application number. Otherwise, the letter may not be considered by the responsible department of the Foundation.

Important!
The Ukrainian Veterans Foundation informs that the Foundation’s employees do not provide individual consultations to applicants, as well as do not provide legal and accounting advice.

Nomad.Liv is one of the NGOs that won the Varto+GO 2023 project competition from the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation of the Ministry of Veterans Affairs.

They are already implementing a project to develop family veteran businesses and businesses of active military personnel and their families. They work. They help. They inspire. They teach and even organize trips to the mountains. Moreover, the participants of the Nomad.Liv training program have already shown results – they have become winners of our contest program Varto: Golden Hands! So we are proud to tell you about our winners, who are educating our future winners.

Nomad.Liv began its journey of helping veterans in 2015. It was a project called “Psychological Rehabilitation and Mutual Support for Female and Male Veterans.” Since then, this project has included more than 100 events, such as hiking and kayaking. More than 1000 veterans from all over Ukraine have experienced the unique Zen of grief therapy and being in a circle of people like them.

Vitaliy Dyachuk, the founder of the Nomad.Liv project, realized that mountains heal. Vitaliy is a volunteer who returned from the combat zone and took a backpack and went to the Carpathians. As it turned out, it has a magical power.

In addition, psychosocial rehabilitation through hiking in the mountains was also implemented for veterans who lost their limbs. And in 2021, veterans who lost their limbs conquered the 5033-meter-high Kazbek Mountain (Georgia).

Assistance in psychological and mental rehabilitation for veterans and people with disabilities is the mission of the team of this NGO. But this year, Nomad.Liv is expanding the boundaries of its activities and will now help veteran entrepreneurship develop from startup to development. The project partners, the NGO PRO Women UA, are helping them with this. They conducted a study of the target audience, identified training and networking needs among businesses, and created a technique and methodology for training in family business development. The Ukrainian Veterans Foundation supports this initiative.

As part of the Nomad.Liv project, at least 3 camps with mentors and psychologists will be held for at least 60 military personnel and their families.

The program “Family Business Development for Veterans” consists of the following blocks:

• business camp in the Carpathians for 7 days;
• mentoring sessions;
• work with a psychologist;
• assistance with submitting project applications for grant and investment competitions (we already have the first winners, and veterans participating in the project are the leaders of the rating list).

The program itself lasts for 6 months: a business camp (7 days) – weekly meetings with mentors online – master classes – monthly meetings with a psychologist online – consultations on project applications (on request).

The camps have already inspired 60 veterans from all over the country. You can join them. All events are open to female and male veterans, one of their spouses, and their partners by pre-registering on Nomad.Liv’s social media pages and in groups with opportunities in Telegram.

Soap making, felting, beading, weaving, perfume making. In total, there are more than 15 types of supportive classes for the veteran community of Vinnytsia: both children and adults. All this is with the assistance of the UVF.

This is a project of VinOK. Its ideological initiators are convinced that creativity, art therapy, healthy communication, and social activities are effective support tools that are easily perceived by people who still have a barrier to using the services of a psychologist directly.

The project is being implemented by the Vinnytsia Center of Educational Technologies with the support of the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation of the Ministry of Veterans Affairs.

As part of the ” Varto+GO” competition program, this NGO received funding to create supportive classes for military personnel and veterans.

As part of the project, activists from Vinnytsia provide opportunities and encourage representatives of the veteran community to attend creative and supportive classes and art therapy practices.

The NGO emphasizes: 38 % of families of defenders need psychological help. However, their project is not a direct psychological aid, but rather “provokes social cohesion and the habit of spending time taking care of oneself.”

“The project can be the first step towards psychotherapeutic and meditative practices for strong people who are not used to spending time on themselves. We also use art therapy methods. In this way, we offer a little distraction from anxiety and heavy thoughts, and fill up with resources. We not only offer a ready-made list of more than 15 types of activities, but also listen to the requests of veterans and their families, try to organize the types of activities that are really interesting to our visitors,” says the NGO that won our program.

We are talking about the following 16 (sixteen!) activities:

• Ceramic workshop;
• Knitting
• Felting
• Hiking in the nature;
• Beadwork;
• Artistic travels;
• Weaving;
• Drawing;
• Photo school;
• Soap making;
• Conversation club in Ukrainian;
• Perfume creation;
• Rock climbing;
• Art therapy;
• Board games;
• Embroidery

Remarkably, the artists currently involved in the project were chosen empirically over several years of cooperation: the attendees of the classes were able to “vote with their feet,” meaning they could attend only those classes that they were interested in; where the artist was charismatic enough to create an atmosphere that attracted the audience.

“Since the beginning of 2023, we have been keenly aware that we want and need to expand the circle of our visitors to the veteran community. After all, who else can we work for now if not those who are defending the country, who have given and are giving their time and energy, and often their health and even lives to protect us. So we started actively looking for opportunities to do so. We received support from the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation. This is just incredible! This is exactly what we wanted: to be able to work for children and adults of the veteran community. To thank them with what we can: attention and care! Our project is a way to promote the development of effective gratitude to our defenders and their families,” says project manager Kateryna Botvinnik.

The project will run from July 2023 to June 2024.