ESC in the heart of Ukraine, Vinnytsia

Non-governmental Organization "Nashe Podillia" is an active unit in the civic society of Ukraine. Our history stretches for nearly 16 years now (since 2002) with numerous projects carried out on local, state and international levels. The most active directions of work of our NGO are facilitating the institutional capacity of rural and small NGOs over the Ukrainian territory, environmental education and trash segregation, democracy and participation of people in the communities' lives, cultural initiatives, independent and amateur media, rural and urban development. In our activities we engage youth and encourage intercultural and European awareness activities often by utilizing non-formal educational instruments. The main working force of our NGO has always been our volunteers who gather around our organization from the local community – universities, youth circles and from other youth organizations that "Nashe Podillia" cooperates with. That is how we develop young people and give them a chance to tackle some burning issues of the community. Particular mission of the NGO lies in developing rural communities and giving opportunities for youth there and that is why we often include participants with educational, geographical and social obstacles from the rural area in our activities. One of the most successful projects of the organization is called the "Green school" - the idea of building a trash segregation process on the basis of the secondary school where pupils raise funds from selling off the separated raw materials and develop their school and this happens against the background of the ecological education in the school and rally of local population. Now the methodology of this project is spreading all over Ukraine proving relevance and effect on the places. We are as well proud of our international ties which led to a number of projects: youth mobility projects (“Youth-in-Action” and “Erasmus Plus” in particular) and youth exchanges, study exchanges for professionals from the NGO sphere and for other civic society activists, school exchanges, multilateral projects aimed at strengthening the capacities of local communities through trainings and empowerment, etc. NGO “Nashe Podillia” is a founder member and the coordinator of the “Civic initiatives in Ukraine” network (www.ngonetwork.org.ua). The network is an influential advocate of the democratic transformation and active citizenship promoter all over Ukraine encompassing over 100 CSOs as its members. The network runs under the support from the National Endowment for Democracy and other international partners. NGO “Nashe Podillia” together with its local partner NGO “DC Pangeya Ultima” have founded the “Intercultural Youth Studio” (www.icyst.blogspot.com) – special project platform that hosts several project ideas touching the sphere of media and audio-visuals. All these projects are based on the use of international youth mobility instruments and aim for intercultural dialogue. The project that has already proved its success is the “YouthInsight” project (development of youth and amateur media products) and hosted numerous EVS volunteers, live presentatitons and a festival on amateur video production. NGO "Nashe Podillia" since 2015 is involved in Peace Corps activities and hosts a volunteer who helps with promotion of existent projects and with building the organizational capacity. Thanks to that we have initiated a long-lasting project called "Eco-center in Stina" in one of the rural areas of the Vinnytska oblast. The project comprises a holistic approach to developing a community and aiming for its sustainability through trash segregation campaigns, development of rural tourism, engagement of youth and building the active citizenship among the local inhabitants.