BURchik collects for his tools
Over 2 years of work by the Kharkiv branch of the volunteer program "Building Ukraine Together", 25 volunteer actions were conducted and an active volunteer community of 400 people was formed. To further support and scale the work, the branch team plans to expand the set of tools, which will allow faster and better quality repair actions for low-income families and public organizations.
Our main activity is helping those who help others, so first of all, we organize monthly volunteer and mutual aid actions — BURchiks. And then additional activities. For us each BURchik is special, so we share impressions from each BURchik on our social networks: Facebook, Instagram and Telegram channel.
Let us remind that "Building Ukraine Together" (or simply BUR) is a nationwide volunteer program through which youth can help families in need and develop public spaces around them, and as a nice bonus get — the opportunity to travel Ukraine and new acquaintances. For those who want to join BUR camps, we recommend familiarizing with the 2022 camp plan. Camps run in the format of week-long volunteering, starting from spring, lasting all summer and ending in autumn.
Unlike camps, BUR branch — is a local volunteer community that regularly organizes short-term (1-3 days) mutual aid actions, namely — BURchiks. Such branches were founded in seven cities of Ukraine, including Kharkiv.
💛 ABOUT BURCHIKS 2019-2021
Together we helped repair the kitchen in the home of a single mother from Babai village, helped grandmother declutter and repair her home, whose apartment over 10 years of isolated life turned into a warehouse, together with volunteers of the military hospital restored wards and corridors of the psychiatric department, built a storage room for the Scout house so they could comfortably hold events for little scouts, repaired a gazebo in Oleksiivka courtyard, cleaned up trash on World Clean Up Day and did many cool things we'll definitely tell about..
In 2020, our team organized 11 BURchiks, 6 BURtalks, one BURtoloka and many formal and informal networkings, more details here. And in 2021 14 BURchiks were conducted, including participation in mounting locations and installations at Samisobifest and Parade fest festivals, help in creating Kolo Lisu space, help to a family with a child with cerebral palsy and a lonely grandmother. So we constantly try to scale our activities and involve more and more volunteers in our community each year.
We did all this to show that each of us is capable of changing our environment and able to help those who were slightly less lucky than us 💪
For each volunteer action we invited friends, acquaintances and those willing to help, materials were purchased by BUR, and necessary tools we always asked from friends and acquaintances.
💛 So in the new 2022 we have a small dream - to have our own set of basic repair and construction tools. This will help us reduce organizational burden when preparing for actions and help more people.
About the branch launch, plans and hopes, first achievements and failures can be read here Kharkiv BUR branch: to build — not to break.
👉 If you know families, initiatives or organizations that need volunteer repair actions, you can recommend them to submit an application for organizing a burchik. We regularly consider such requests and provide help and support.
👉We are also always happy to welcome new volunteers who want to join such actions. We invite all interested to apply for volunteering at our branch.
💛 BUR-TEAM
Lupova Olena - volunteer development manager.
Ternovsky Sviatoslav - master/administrator of BURchiks.
Mariana Nefodova - fundraiser.
Yulia Boklazhko - volunteer coordinator.
Anastasia Batiukh - SMM manager.
Avelina Ostafiichuk - crisis manager.
Konstantin Sharykin - technical support/videographer.
💛 OUR PLANS FOR 2022
To organize:
- Volunteer actions (BURchiks/BUR tolokas) - 1-2 events per month.
- Cultural-educational events - 1 event per month.
- Team buildings for the team - 1 event per quarter.
- TamBUR (Strategic session for coordinators of branches from different cities of Ukraine)
Cooperation with the project "Good Paw" to improve living conditions of animals in private shelters.
Joint implementation of the repair cafe project "Take and Repair" - is an ordinary space/cafe where people gather, those who know how to repair/restore and those who want to do it, and nearby are all necessary tools.
Yes, we are confident that our future is in our hands!
We ourselves are responsible for our life, welfare and future of our country.
So we call on everyone to be an active citizen and help each other.
And if you also have the right tools in your hands, then together we can do even more good deeds! 💛
