Volunteering at work and beyond
Anhelina Tiochta began her volunteering journey in 2016. During her first year at university, she joined the scout organization Plast. In the early years, she volunteered at various events and worked with her kurin, which is what Plast calls a children's association.
Anhelina Tiochta and her kurin. Photo from the heroine's archive
After some time, she began leading the nest—a union of four different groups in Plast. This increased the number of children she took care of to forty. She continued this role until 2023, when her girls aged out of the 6-11 age group. Tiokhta then handed them over to her colleagues and shifted her focus to volunteer fundraising.
"What does volunteer fundraising mean?" she explains. "These are the banks that volunteers open for their gatherings for scouts who are currently in the army. I receive requests from the military and look for scouts who can open these banks, hold a fair, or somehow raise funds."
The volunteer recalls one such bank opening, where she helped launch a fundraiser for a volunteer and a MP of the Ukrainian parliament. She wanted to do this for her birthday. The funds raised were for a night vision device for a scout who fought in the Luhansk forestry.
They spent a long time considering the best way to approach the task—"they wanted to be well prepared, because this device was very expensive." Then, just 30 minutes after opening the bank, the volunteer received a message that a serviceman had died.
"A person opens a fundraiser on their birthday, and as a manager, I had to write to her that this soldier had died. We continued the fundraiser, and the money was transferred to the commander of his unit. But still, you understand how limited time is. People really die. Sometimes, not only the fulfillment of combat missions, but also life depends on how quickly you open this fundraiser," she recalls.
At the same time, Tiokhta collects money for the army not only as a member of Plast. At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, she and her friends organized a volunteer headquarters in Lutsk. "We met with friends, boys and girls. The boys went to the territorial defense, and my friends and I started volunteering."
At that time, there were about 15 of them. They had several Instagram pages with a large number of followers, including pages dedicated to art projects and sports competitions. Through these platforms, they began sharing information about the volunteer headquarters and collecting the necessary assistance for the military.
"We divided the roles, someone was in charge of inquiries, someone was in charge of searching for things. And people started taking things there on the first day. I was in charge of cargo and searching for drivers, particularly for hospital workers. We needed cars that could transport large loads. That's why I still have the contact 'Mykola 11 ton bus' in my phone," says the volunteer.
Volunteer headquarters. Photo from the heroine's archive
Later, the headquarters was closed, but Tiokhta continued to open her own fundraising banks and collect money for the military. She typically raised funds for electronic warfare systems, drones, and car repairs. She recalls how the 46th brigade thanked her for her efforts.
She received a notification that a parcel was arriving at Nova Post from a combat medic. She and her husband had a mutual acquaintance with her, so she assumed that he was transferring some of his belongings through the medic, as he had done several times before. However, when she opened the parcel, she was surprised to find a candle inside.
"This candle with the smell of the steppe was sent to me after the liberation of Kherson. And also a ring and a postcard with a Kherson watermelon. The military sent it to me for my volunteer help. It was very nice and pleasant. Although I do all this not for any awards, a simple thank you is enough for me. But such an act was very pleasant and moved me," she says.
"Volunteering is the key to the restoration of liberated communities"
Dmytro Doroshok is a volunteer with over 25 years of experience. He began his volunteering journey while working at the State Center for Social Services for Families, Children, and Youth. One of his roles was to engage young people in social projects.
He and his team looked at the experience of European countries, particularly Germany, and decided it was necessary to involve volunteers in social work. They began organizing volunteering schools and later established volunteer centers in various regions of Ukraine. Some centers focused on preventing negative phenomena, while others worked with children or even offered repair services.
"So we have started doing this since 1998. That's when our organization Volunteer appeared. But at that time, we knew little about volunteering. At the end of the 90s, we only knew about a magazine called Volonteer. It had two bullets on the cover, so some people confused volunteers with mercenaries. Then there were two Maidan revolutions, and after them, people began to understand what volunteering really is much better," says Doroshok.
Dmytro Doroshok. Photo from the hero's archive
Currently, Dmytro is working on various projects at the Volunteer Center. One of the latest is a joint project with the State Emergency Service. They were training volunteer rescuers in Kyiv and the surrounding region, teaching them how to provide first aid, clear debris, and conduct search operations. These volunteers were prepared to assist professional rescuers in the event of strikes.
Additionally, this summer, the team worked on a community laundromat project, which Rubryka has already written about. These laundromats were set up in the liberated communities of the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions. One of the key objectives of this project was to activate the volunteer movement in the community.
"In addition to opening community laundromats, we also conducted training on writing grants for volunteers working in these communities. And today we already know about several projects that people wrote and received funding. Yes, maybe they are not big, but now a children's center has been opened in a community 50-60 kilometers from the front line," says Doroshok.
He often works with liberated communities and regularly goes on business trips to visit them. As a result, he is confident that volunteering is the key to activating civil society and, therefore, to restoring a liberated community.
"Volunteers are proactive people who are ready to take responsibility, and it is such people who form civil society. They are the ones who then start a dialogue with the authorities about what they need to do as a priority in their community — restore the water supply, build a new road, or install solar panels," says the volunteer.
He explains that such communities are what motivates him to continue volunteering. He gives the example of a village he often passes during his business trips. There was intense fighting there, so almost everything in the village was destroyed.
When Doroshok first drove past the village, he saw blue tiles on all the houses. As he got closer, he realized that the tiles were actually blue film. The next time he visited, there were new roofs, and soon after, the windows had lights, the water supply was restored, and houses were being repaired.
"At first, when we talked to people from this village, they said that no one was doing anything. And the next time I come and ask: 'Who put the new tiles on for you?' And they tell me that volunteers came and started restoring. And then the local authorities joined them and the village slowly came back to life," says the volunteer.
"Right now, I am most inspired by children"
Valeriia Hladka started volunteering when she entered university and moved to Odesa. There, she joined the Burning Volunteers team and volunteered at charity races.
"When I first joined, I realized that this was for me. I like volunteering because you can meet completely different people. I volunteered with mother and son, who held posters and cheered on the runners. I volunteered with an older gentleman, who handed out T-shirts to the participants. And the best thing is to feel that you are united by one goal," the volunteer says.
Valeriia Hladka. Photo from the heroine's archive
However, over time, Hladka began to engage in not only sports but also educational volunteering. She started conducting various lessons for children, talking about topics not typically covered in the school curriculum, and popularizing volunteering among young people. During her volunteering, she worked with more than a thousand children.
"Children can often volunteer as early as the fifth grade. They tell how they brought their own things for humanitarian aid, how they raised funds by singing, doing their own crafts, or thanks to fairs," says the volunteer.
She also recalls one of her last lessons for students from different Kharkiv schools. As usual, they talked about volunteering. One girl from the seventh grade began to tell her story.
The girl loves to make jewelry — she watches videos on YouTube and repeats them. She makes them for her family. Previously, when she went to school offline, she would give them to her classmates. Now she wants to sell the products and donate the money to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. However, she cannot do this because in her district in Kharkiv, it often is dangerous because of Russia's missile strikes, and she is afraid to go outside.
"And I listen to her and understand that children are thinking so big now. And then she continues: 'And I will make all these jewelry in advance. And when I have the opportunity, I want to sell them all near my house. And I will be able to donate all the money to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.' And it is so sad to hear this story. But it is also very inspiring. How children can behave like adults," says the volunteer.
She adds that all children are like that now. They are interested in much bigger problems than a bad grade at school. Hladka also recalls that once in class, they started discussing environmental problems in the context of beekeeping.
"Now I am most inspired by children. Adults are, of course, more aware. It always seemed that they understood the problem better, the reason, how to help and solve it. But the way children are getting involved now is very impressive. When I come to volunteering classes, I start asking about their volunteering, and their stories simply do not end," says the volunteer.
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