Author: Olya Kulyk, ICF “AIDS Foundation East-West” (AFEW-Ukraine)
Last year, AFEW-Ukraine gathered young activists of the project “Bridging the Gaps: Health and Rights for Key Populations” from four cities of Ukraine in a Summer Camp. One of the goals was to teach teenagers to design projects and prepare their own applications for funding. The projects created during the camp later were sent to AFEW-Ukraine’s competition of small grants.
18-year-old Mariias Frolova is a leader of the youth community centre “Compass” from the Community Organisation “Kharkiv charitable fund “Blago”. “Compass” is a centre for adolescents who use drugs. AFEW-Ukraine supports four of such centres in Ukraine. Mariias is telling about the projects of her team.
– Mariias, please tell us why did you decide to create the projects for youth?
– I decided to develop projects for youth when I participated in the camp for project leaders of Bridging the Gaps project. After training, I thought that I could do something useful for myself or for other young people.
In “Compass” we often get together, play and discuss things. Our team got the idea of watching films together and discussing them later. Initially, we wanted to choose educational films – about diseases, human rights and so on, so that we learn more. Then as a bonus, we added fiction films. We needed some extra equipment – a beamer, screen, and speakers.
AFEW-Ukraine supported the purchase of this equipment.
Our second project is called “QR code”. The project helps adolescents to learn more about their rights. One day our friend asked: “What would I do if I did not know about “Compass?” This made us think that not everyone knows about the centre and how cool it is, as this is the place for the adolescents to get help. We needed to inform adolescents that they can come to “Compass” while facing different situations in their lives. Now QR codes are popular. Through scanning them, you can get access to different information, so we decided to use them for informing youth about their rights and inviting them to the centre.
– Who is the target audience for your projects and how do you inform about them?
– We locate our QR codes in schools and lyceums of Kharkiv. By scanning the QR code (there are six of them), adolescents are directed to the information about “Compass”, information about HIV, reproductive health, psychoactive substances and police. After reading the information, teenagers are offered to answer online questions on these topics. After passing the quest with six different topics and completing the task, participants receive an invitation to “Compass” and get a ticket to our cinema.
Target group of the projects is youth of 14-19 years old, usually from not very rich families, often having limited access to leisure activities. Therefore, free movie screening is very attractive for them.
– What are your achievements in projects implementations?
– Since October, we had 13 film screenings with 105 participants, followed by interesting in-depth discussions. 
Due to QR codes project, more people began to visit “Compass”. 64 people received invitations to come to the centre and the cinema. Some visitors to our cinema stay here for services… Since November last year, we received more than 260 answers to our online questionnaires.
QR codes and movie screening stimulate youth to learn more about HIV, drug use, reproductive health issues. Those who come to watch the movie, are also involved in discussions about safer behaviours. Social workers from the centre are invited for facilitating discussions and can immediately respond to any question or provide individual or group counselling if needed.
– How did you benefit from creating and implementing projects?
– It was a great experience. After the projects I mentioned above, we developed a new one, submitted it to one big organization and won a grant that will allow us to have a gym in our centre.
I am confident that the most important thing is to work together. We can have different opinions, which can sometimes create problems, but instead of arguing we have to decide on everything together.
