Help for Ukraine

The competition winners have been chosen

The Russian war of aggression in the Ukraine continues. This increases the need for effective medium and long-term assistance to Ukraine's civil society as well as the refugees in European countries. At the beginning of May, the non-profit Sto Foundation announced an additional special budget of €100,000 for aid projects intended to help Ukrainian society as a whole, as well as different subgroups – namely families, individuals, infants, schoolchildren, the elderly and the disabled. In mid-July, a jury made up of representatives from the worlds of politics, science and business convened to decide the winners of the competition.

For 17 years, the non-profit Sto Foundation has primarily supported the next generation of people working in the construction industry (painters and plasterers) as well as architecture and engineering students. It makes available €1 million annually for these programmes. As the Foundation is active in the construction sector, and the war in the eastern and southern parts of the country has caused untold damage to its buildings and infrastructure, the Foundation Council decided to primarily help in this area. With a funding amount of €100,000, the competition focused on initiatives aimed at restoring the living space and infrastructure, as well as providing support to refugees in the country itself as well as in European countries.

Around 50 organisations had applied by 30 June – mostly NGOs, communal initiatives and institutions of higher learning. In mid-July, the jury named a total of three aid initiatives that it believed were most worthy of support:

• The “Craft hub of the Institute of Social Policy of the Region”, Kharkiv, is planning the construction and expansion of a large workshop in which mainly refugees will receive professional training in how to restore existing housing.
• Amongst other things, the “City of Artificers” Craft Centre of the Novomoskovsk city council offers child care facilities to allow refugee mothers to learn new handicraft and artistic skills. The aim of the training and retraining is to provide the required skills for setting up new ventures in the future.
• “Perspectives for young people” is a communal initiative of the city of Kiev that focuses on training people who are unfit for military service due to small physical handicaps to be professional builders.

Because of the overall variety and quality of the projects, the Sto Foundation decided to award four special prizes. The additional €55,000 went to “Common (Re)Constructor” of Wismar University and TU Dortmund University, “Alternative Transportation for Social Workers” of the Sumy City Center of Social Service, “Welcome Harbour for Culture and Integration” of the International Building Exhibition of Stuttgart and “Workshops with Ukrainian Children” of the Czech Technical University in Prague.

You can download the press information and the high-resolution images here.

Eva Neubert
T.: +49 711 9454161-27

ene@a1kommunikation.de