“Who else but me?”: Ukrainian female entrepreneurs restore their businesses and communities

What is the problem?

The full-scale invasion had devastating consequences for several Ukrainian communities and businesses. Micro and small businesses were the most affected. In April 2022, almost half of those who completely stopped their work were representatives of companies with up to 10 employees (28.5%) and companies with 10 to 50 employees (17.8%). As of February 2023, the total losses of Ukrainian enterprises (including state-owned enterprises) amounted to $13 billion, and the total indirect losses were estimated at more than $33 billion.

What is the solution?

While men are defending Ukraine at the front (women are also on the defensive, but statistically, there are many more men), many women have taken up the task of restoring and even expanding their businesses and rebuilding communities.

USAID Deputy Administrator for Policy and Programming Isobel Coleman, addressing the participants of the seventh Ukrainian Women's Congress (UWC), emphasized that Ukrainian women participate in military operations, local decision-making, and fundraising for local initiatives, mobilize efforts to satisfy the needs of internally displaced persons and support of critical groups of civil society. According to her, it is essential to recognize the urgent role of women in Ukrainian society and this war for independence.

According to Opendatabot, 56% of new individual enterprises in Ukraine in 2023 were opened by women, the ideologue of the Made in Ukraine project and the UWC business panel moderator, Yuliia Savostina, reported. That is, women opened every second individual enterprise in Ukraine during the war.

"As the situation over the past two years has shown, women in Ukraine are brilliant, adaptable, and flexible. In addition, it is worth paying attention to the statistics that women reinvest 90% of their income back into the family, unlike men, who reinvest only 47%," said Nataliia Karpenchuk-Konopatska, president of the Women's Business Chamber of Ukraine.

An example of adaptability is how the affected businesses of various directions, such as the MODriz enterprise, Vandra Ragz, and Azov Factory-Kitchen, which became New Kitchen, recovered in a new quality. The owners and co-founders of these businesses shared what made it possible. The head of the Ivanivka village council of the Chernihiv region, Olena Shvydka, told how it was possible to return almost all the people to the severely affected community and to start rebuilding it immediately after the liberation.

How does it work?

"I started my entrepreneurial activity nine months before the full-scale invasion. On February 24, I already had, as we joked with the team, a full-fledged child. We were powerful and could continue to work," Olha Bilodid, the owner of the MODriz enterprise from Kharkiv, and now Lviv region, began her story.

The company's profile is innovative cutting technologies in architecture and heavy industry.

At the beginning of the war, the company lost personnel: men were forced to go to fight, and women sought salvation abroad. It also lost property because the production was located in northern Kharkiv, only 20 kilometers from the Russian Belgorod.

Then, there was a quick relocation under fire, adaptation in a new region, and launch of new products. They were the first to produce a volunteer product from valuable materials under the slogan, "We will keep every victory as valuable as possible, in the most valuable materials."

"Then I didn't have the tools to participate in the war. I knew I had surviving equipment, which I could transport to the Lviv region with my team. I can shoot at the enemy and support our defenders with this equipment," Bilodid said.

Because there were a lot of requests for large paintings with patriotic motifs, the company began looking for foreign partners who could cooperate with Ukrainian foundations and use paintings as lots at charity auctions.

"To date, around €20,000 have been raised with this particular volunteer product to support individual teams. This was the biggest motivation for us to work," says the entrepreneur.

The team with equipment was greatly supported when it arrived in the Lviv region. The enterprise was included in the relocation program, and it was compensated for the transportation of all capacities.

They found premises, started work, adapted, and everything gradually recovered.

"At the beginning of the war, I realized that I needed to know each of my machines so that I could write a program and stand behind the machine to cut something," Bilodid shares her experience.

She also tells about the opportunities that opened up for Ukrainian businesses, particularly women's, during the great war.

• Today, there are many educational programs in which foreign donors invest.

"I very actively participate in every training offered to me, for example, to master the correct efficiency of the distribution of funds. I did not have this opportunity before the start of the full-scale invasion; now, it is free of charge," Bilodid shares.

• There are opportunities to receive additional grant funds, for example, to develop one's own business.

Bilodid's company also received them and could slightly compensate for the lost consumables and raw materials.

• The doors of participation in foreign exhibitions are open for Ukrainian businesses.

"We started going abroad and impressed the people there that these products are made in Ukraine," says Bilodid. In this way, it was possible to find new partners — already after the start of the war, international orders came.

• Conditions for exporting Ukrainian products are now simplified.

"There are, of course, nuances. You have to sweat a little, but it's all possible, and now the door is open for the Ukrainian product. We are already good competition for Italian stone products," concluded Bilodid.

Kakhovka resident Larysa Metla Boden is better known as the owner of the largest asparagus farm in Ukraine.

Unfortunately, the trademark GourmeT from Lyubymivka remained under occupation. But asparagus is a perennial crop that lives for 12 years in one place, consoled Metla Boden: "We hope to return in a year, and our asparagus will be in all the stores, just like before."

Metla Boden founded her second business, the Vandra Rugs weaving studio, 18 years ago. The motive was to provide employment and income to women, which would not depend on the season. After all, the Kherson region is mainly a region of vegetable growing and other areas of agriculture, in which workers are almost not involved in winter.

"Thus, we founded a weaving studio from scratch. Before that, I knew nothing about weaving, but the main thing was that at that time, I already had partners from Sweden looking for a handmade carpets supplier," says Metla Boden.

The enterprise was immediately oriented purely on export. They started with three weavers, and by the beginning of 2022, there were already 37.

"We sent carpets to all European countries and the US," says the owner.

The war and the occupation took everyone by surprise. The team immediately began to think about how to leave. After all, the production is located in the center of Kakhovka, and from the first days of the war, it was necessary to bypass the Russians somehow to get there.

Thanks to international partners, it was possible to take most female workers with their children abroad. But the other part remained, eager to wait for the liberation. They lasted like this until May 2022, then realized they still had to go.

They ended up in Kosiv, in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, by accident. Before that, Metla Boden had never been to Kosiv, but everything turned out well. The mayor met with the company's owner on Sunday at nine o'clock in the morning (she shared that she only realized later that this was a big deal for western Ukraine) and told her not to worry and to come, assured that everyone would be accommodated. The city of 8,000 housed 17,000 IDPs at the time.

Thus, ten weavers and six children began a new phase of life in Kosiv.

Metla Boden names the following components of success in a new place:

• It was possible to remove one car with equipment from Kakhovka.
• The workers could take samples of wool colors developed over 17 years.

• In Kosiv, the relocated business was very warmly received by the local government and the community: they helped resettle people and provide for their daily needs, and most importantly, they contacted the Kosiv Institute of Applied and Decorative Arts.

Currently, Vandra Ragz employs 49 weavers, of which only 30% knew how to weave before getting a job.

"The process of training and motivating people was fundamental. We had to make our partners believe in us quickly and not give up on our customers because they had been waiting for their carpets for half a year, almost a year, and some even more. We had to start a new life in a new place," says Metla Boden.

• In Kosiv, international donors immediately helped the company a lot: firstly, the Danish Refugee Council provided the first grant of ₴600,000 for the first machine of the relocated company. The International Organization for Migration and USAID helped a lot as well.

The owner of Vandra Ragz emphasizes that the most important thing is that USAID and another company help us finance the training of new weavers. We have to train them for six months. This is very important because such a specialist would receive ₴6,700 from the Employment Center and would not have the right to receive a salary from us. No one would agree to that. Grant funds supported us a lot," the entrepreneur shared with Rubryka.

The last grant is from the company Civitta, which provided €50,000 for an innovative project that will expand the company's range and open up new opportunities for young people studying at the Kosiv Institute, the entrepreneur is convinced.

During this time, the company received ₴67,000 for 18 months from the state — this is compensation for two IDPs hired, Metla Boden also shared.

Azov Kitchen Factory was started in 2011 as a family business. It had different formats until it reached the production of semi-finished products from organic products.

"I can't say that we are a relocated company, because anything can be relocated," says Mariia Bubnova, co-founder of the company. "When we left on March 15, 2022, we could take only one car of our company."

Almost immediately after leaving, we received a call from our partner, USAID, because only on January 22, 2022, we had concluded an agreement with them, according to which they were to receive new equipment in the summer. The people of Mariupol were assured they would receive support if they re-founded their businesses.

Then, Bubnova left for the Netherlands with her two children and worked online for a year and a half on renewing her business plan.

The entrepreneur says: "We applied to all possible international and state programs. Thanks to the support of donors, we managed to assemble the line. Now our enterprise is located in Slavutych and is called New kitchen. I am very grateful to Slavutych for this opportunity."

Business in Slavutych will be truly new: now the Bubnovs will produce fully prepared first courses in retort packages. They will be helpful not only to the military but also to ordinary families who don't have time for cooking.

So far, equipment production has been delayed due to a lack of workers at Ukrainian production enterprises.

"That's why we are gathering technologically efficient capacities on the new line. We will hire mostly women at the enterprise because these are the current realities for Ukraine," says Bubnova.

Ten villages of this community in the Chernihiv region were occupied in 2022. "For a whole month, I can say this for sure: we had hell on earth. Capture, murder, torture, destruction of property. Out of four thousand households, two thousand and fifteen were either damaged or completely destroyed. Communal property is either damaged or destroyed. Not a single building has remained as it was before the war," says Shvydka, head of the Ivanivka village council of the Chernihiv region.Head of the Ivanivka Village Council of the Chernihiv Region Olena Shvydka / Photo by UWC

However, the people did not give up, and the day after the liberation, Shvydka called the citizens to a meeting and, first of all, organized female entrepreneurs who headed what was later called the humanitarian headquarters. They provided people with food, medicine, and hygiene products.

But people had nowhere to live, so they evacuated. Approximately 50% of the community's residents left at the beginning of April 2022.

"I watched with fear what would happen to my community. There were fewer and fewer residents. I understood that there would be no community if there were no residents," Shvydka recalls her feelings at the time.

Therefore, she made a tough decision.

"As early as April 2022, we started cleaning and repairing our home. I understood that everyone wants to live at home under their own roof. We did it specifically for those people who stayed. There was a lot of opposition: people called from Western Ukraine and from abroad with claims why their housing was not being rebuilt. But the answer was: 'We will rebuild when you are here.'"

Thus, in the summer of 2022, the head managed to return almost the entire population to the community.

For the reconstruction, they attracted all possible foreign aid and received help from Ukrainian volunteers from various corners. When the Kharkiv region was liberated, they decided to help others as they had helped them before.

"People brought everything. Since then, my community has been constantly collecting aid in those regions that need it the most. And also constantly helps the soldiers at the front," said Shvydka.

She continues: "What can a woman in the village do? Plant a vegetable garden. At our request, the donors gave us the opportunity to plant a vegetable garden: they gave us seeds."

People were able to grow vegetables not only for themselves but also for sale. The community also started organizing entrepreneurship training and writing grant applications for residents. During this period, three non-governmental organizations appeared in the community. One of them was headed by women who previously headed the humanitarian headquarters. They take an active part in the reconstruction of the village. One resident founded her own dairy processing enterprise. Shvydka concludes: "The government should be with the people."

What other solutions are needed?

The president of the Women's Business Chamber of Ukraine, Nataliia Karpenchuk-Konopatska, emphasized the need for informational and educational support for eight million Ukrainian women in rural areas: "Ukrainian women are innovative and flexible. As we know, 59% of women intend to start a business but do not have the necessary knowledge. We need to strengthen their economic capacity."

In her opinion, creating advisory services at the state level is very important.

"The role of Ukrainian women is changing — they just need to be strengthened in the regions. It is essential to reach the most remote regions of Ukraine and talk about the opportunities that exist. Because there are a lot of good support programs, but, sadly, not everyone knows about them," noted Karpenchuk-Konopatska.

For her part, Yuliia Metzger, a Supervisory Board of PrivatBank member, urged women to use not only international grants but also opportunities from domestic banks.