Volunteer center “SOVA”

7.9.2021

The opening of the volunteer center “SOVA” took place at the ER Institute of History, International Relations and Socio-Political Sciences. 

On September 7, 2021, the SOVA Volunteer Center was solemnly opened at the Educational and Research Institute of History, International Relations and Socio-Political Sciences. Among the honored guests were acting rector Vitalii Kurylo, vice-rectors for scientific and pedagogical work Oleksandr Meniailenko and Leonid Vakhovskyi, head of the Starobilsk Probation Department Olha Skachkova, director of the Starobilsk Social Service Center Svitlana Lopatina and social work specialist of the SOS Children’s Villages charitable organization Yulia Shovkun.

The guests congratulated the young volunteers on a serious step in their activities, told the story of this detachment and wished them inspired work and an unquenchable desire to help those in need.

The SOVA unit was created at the university in the early 2000s. It was quite numerous and had great success in volunteering, however, due to the forced evacuation of our university, the detachment’s activities ceased. The restoration of work began in December 2020, when the student teaching staff received a grant from the All-Ukrainian Community Center “Volunteer” and UNDP. This resulted in the creation of a mini-initiative “Volunteer School”, to work with children in conflict with the law. Thus, work began on adolescents who are registered in the probation centers of Lysychansk, Shchastia, Novoaidar and Starobilsk. The training sessions were held under the slogan “equal to equal”.

At the present stage, the head of this center is the teacher of the Social Work Department, Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences, Associate Professor Kateryna Ignatenko. The student leader of the detachment is Anastasia Krivulchak, a third-year student majoring in “Social Work”. The aim of the center is to help vulnerable categories of the population of communities in Starobilsk, Novoaidar and Severodonetsk, which is to strengthen the ability of society to socially protect the population and categories of the population that have vulnerability on various grounds. The main motto of the unit is “Take your heart! Light it up boldly! Give it to people so that it burns forever!” The team of the volunteer center includes students of the specialty “Social Work”, but the main group consists of 5 students who are the initiators and implementers of this idea. On the basis of this center, students practice skills that will be useful to them in their future profession.

Volunteering is currently one of the main links in the construction and development of civil society. It embodies the noblest aspirations of humanity – the desire for peace, freedom, security and justice for all people. As members of the unit say, “We are a perpetual motion machine that works at the expense of our enthusiasm”.

Viktoria Kalinina,
Press Center of LTSNU