👥The NGO "PVDN" team brings together people who have walked a difficult path and are working today on the implementation of our projects. 

Today we introduce you to Yevhen — a team member whose experience and integrity strengthen our common cause 👉

"For me, the first day of the full-scale invasion began with a call from my brother: 'Well, it's started!' 

From the first day of the war, I decided to stay in Kherson. After the occupation of the city, I focused on supporting the elderly, providing them with medications. When a shortage of medicine began in Kherson, I bought them through friends in Odesa, Mykolaiv, and Zaporizhzhia and passed them in small batches through acquaintances, with whom I also helped people evacuate to the territory controlled by Ukraine.

I went to protest rallies against the occupiers together with the city residents. Later, FSB officers searched my apartment but did not detain me immediately. Just a few days later, I was taken captive, where I spent 9 days, enduring torture, as well as physical and moral pressure. 

Finding nothing compromising on my phone, they released me, previously forcing me to record a video for propaganda reports in which they called me a 'terrorist'. Despite this, I did not leave the city and continued to help the elderly with medications, acting less openly to avoid drawing unnecessary attention.

I was forced to leave the city in late September 2022 — on the eve of the pseudo-referendum. It was then that friends from law enforcement advised me not to delay and to leave, because at the Russian checkpoints they stopped checking gadgets and only checked personal belongings.

After leaving the occupation, I continued my volunteer activities as part of a charitable foundation. There, for some time, I helped Kherson residents in the de-occupied part of the region and IDPs from the Kherson region.

Recently, I began my activities as part of the NGO 'PVDN'. For me, this is more than an organization — it's a space where everyone contributes to a common cause. People work here who know the value of every day. They know what loss is, and what support is."

The project "Region of the Future: Education, Rehabilitation, and Safety for the Youth of Kherson" is implemented within the multi-donor project "Strengthening Community Capacity in Southern and Eastern Ukraine through Local Initiatives (EMPOWER)", funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) jointly with the European Commission's Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations and implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH.

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