As a student, Rostyslav Semka got his first taste of international volunteerism in a summer camp in Istanbul under the ‘Myself My World’ project. The experience was a game-changer: “I was really impressed about the empowerment that came from volunteering”. The camp also taught Rostyslav about the Sustainable Development Goals and on his return to Ukraine he determined to follow a twinned approach of being a professional educationalist and a community activist. He continued his degree in Business Administration and Law, which later enabled him to become a teacher of Economics and Financial Literacy, and took up a project coordinator position with the CSO ‘DCI Youth’ in Kyiv.
During his student years Rostyslav also got to know more about the EU, its policies and values, and experienced the benefits of being active in EU-supported networking. He took part in an Erasmus+ project and then applied to become a Young European Ambassador (YEA). The selection as a YEA gave Rostyslav opportunities to both learn more about EU and for broader personal development. It was also through the YEA scheme that Rostyslav first became aware of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Fellowships.
In 2022, with the invasion of Ukraine, Rostyslav and his colleagues understood that they could play a positive part in serving their communities by using their new skills in organizing volunteerism and their professional expertise as educationalists. As such the ‘Inspiration Café’ was born and its first project was to establish an Educational Hub in Uzhhorod, in Zakarpatska oblast, which, with EU funding, was able to provide a safe, learning environment for more than 500 children displaced by the war. From the experience of being part of the Educational Hub and from facing the challenges of how to support and grow a community organization, Rostyslav realized how important it was for community initiatives, particularly those led by young activists, to access guidance and practical support for development of strategies and resource mobilization. This was the motivation for Rostyslav to design his ‘Enroot Resilience’ project, which became the focal point of his civil society fellowship.
Through ‘Enroot Resilience’ Rostyslav has produced and published a series of mini-training videos aimed at guiding grassroots organisations to take their first steps in community projects. The videos have had more than 15,000 views and have been complimented with networking activities facilitated by Rostyslav. The networking events were opportunities for activists to meet up and share experiences on developing projects and finding resources. Rostyslav reflected on the success of these activities:
“Learning by doing is probably the most effective way to build capacity for community projects, but learning from the practical experience of others is extremely important. I have learnt so much from listening to the testimonies of activists during our roundtable discussions”.
To conclude his fellowship project Rostyslav hosted a ‘Time for Resilience’ forum, with a mixture of more than 100 offline and online participants. The day-long event involved inputs of lots of different practitioners from civil society, including from other civil society fellows, such as Hanna Nishnindze who delivered a session on Fundraising, and was well-supported with participation from the management of the National Youth Council and local office for Erasmus+ coordination. The feedback from the forum has been excellent: “Many of the young activists used it as a springboard for building new partnerships,” noted Rostyslav, “with others, since the forum, successfully taking on community leadership positions.”
Taking on board the lessons learned from the fellowship, the initial ‘inspiration café’ organization has now been transformed to a CSO called ‘Education 360’ and, with Rostyslav’s and his colleagues’ increased organizational capacities, the CSO has a clear strategy and annual plans. Rostyslav intends to continue to split his time between his formal school teaching duties and the activism managed through ‘Education 360’ , and is proud to be a part of the alumni of Civil Society Fellows.
Find other Featured Stories of our EaP Civil Society Fellows here.
Background information:
Rostyslav Semka is one of the Fellows of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Fellowship programme funded by the European Union. Its main objective is to support civil society activists or civically minded people from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine who demonstrate a deep commitment to leading positive social change in their communities. The Eastern Partnership Civil Society Fellowship programme has been running since 2017 and today the Fellowship alumni has 200 Fellows from across the six countries of the Eastern Partnership. Details about the Fellows and their Fellowship projects can be found here.
