A course has been released on the Zrozumilo! Online Educational Platform for host communities of internally displaced persons to understand challenges and opportunities arising from changes in the population and discuss working with IDPs. The course was developed by East Europe Foundation with the support of Equal Rights and Independent Media, or ERIM, and the European Union.

“One of the significant challenges for Ukraine continues to be the massive displacement of people from the temporarily occupied, frontline territories to relatively safer places. In many Ukrainian communities, the share of new residents is about 10-15 percent of the local population. The European Union continues to support Ukraine – both the IDPs and the communities that host them”, said Julia Jacoby, Civil Society Coordinator in the EU Delegation to Ukraine.

The new course is targeted at local governments – both those communities where IDPs live and those that are dealing with the return of people to liberated settlements. It describes how to study IDPs’ needs, establish communication, integrate new residents into the community and engage them in its development and create long-term support for IDPs through programs funded by local budgets.

“Almost five million Ukrainians have become internally displaced and found homes in new communities. Accepting and resettling so many people require significant efforts by local governments and local residents. This course is about how communities that have received IDPs can work with them, take into account their needs and use their potential for development”, said Victor Liakh, President of East Europe Foundation

The course also features the heads of four communities: Yurii Bova, Head of the Trostianets community in the Sumy Region; Andrii Zalivskyi, Head of the Chervonohrad community in the Lviv Region; Taras Kuchma, Head of the Drohobych community in the Lviv Region; and, Yana Litvinova, Head of the Starobilsk city military administration in the Starobilsk district of the Luhansk Region.

The course is available at no charge to everyone at the following link: https://courses.zrozumilo.in.ua/courses/course-v1:eef+EEF-039+June23/about 

Upon successful completion of the training, participants will be issued certificates containing 0.2 ECTS credits.

The online course was developed within the framework of the Stiykist’ Programme, implemented within a consortium of nongovernmental organisations led by ERIM (Equal Rights and Independent Media, France) in partnership with the Human Rights House Foundation, Human Rights House Tbilisi, the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation and funded by the European Union.