The main activity of “Oselya” is organization of life and work in the Community of homeless people. This is a group of people who live and work together, have a common household, solve their life problems and help those who are more poor. In 2014 40 companions lived in the Community, 3 children among them.
In the community people get a psychological support, a referral to a medical check-up, pocket money, help in re-issue of lost documents, participate in cultural events, are also actively involved in solidarity actions, help others. New–comers participate in social trainings – three months courses that include addiction therapy, personal development trainings, history of Emmaus movement. These afternoon trainings are run by a psychologist and a social worker, and occur every day.
Every day we collect with the truck furniture, clothes, household appliances of the organization respondings to the calls of Lviv inhabitants who donate goods. Later these things are renovated and sold in a charity shop or are given out to low-income persons, homeless people in the Social support center, emigres. In this way “Oselya” also tries to show the public that things unnecessary for them can help others, instead of being thrown away as a trash. The organization also provide transport service for citizens.
To spread the information about collecting goods, we place a social advertisement which appears on city bill boards at times. The Lviv city council produces and places a social advertisement.
To make the collecting of goods more efficient and for comfort of Lviv inhabitants, we put 6 containers for clothes, shoes and books, first in the city. We put containers due to the financial support of Henry Nouwen Foundation, the company “Eco – Lviv” became a producer. In 2014 we put another 4 containers. This initiative isn’t only social but also ecological – things owners don’t need them don’t get to a waste deposit but are sorted carefully. Even unsuitable for use things – torn or dirty clothes, damaged books are re-used – we give them for utilization, and special companies produce felt, padding polyester and different fillers of them.
The charity shop is one of Oselya activities. Here we sell goods Lviv inhabitants give away. The shop is a main source of the Community incomes and also one of the main sources for solidarity actions. To attract more customers to the charity shop we produced and placed advertisements on posts in Vynnyky. In March 2014 the shop was removed to the bigger place in I. Franko str, 53a. The bigger place and better conditions attracted more customers to the shop.
Furniture workshop is one of the main activities of Oselya. The workshop is a center of work therapy, education, as well as a source of income for the community. In 2014 seven companions studied and worked in the workshop. They had an opportunity to get skills on furniture renovation, upholstery, sewing. Citizens of Lviv know about our activity and give their furniture for renovation, giving donations for our work. Somebody gives away used furniture and household equipment which we renovate and sell in the charity shop. We also present another services such as furniture delivery, a visit of a craftsman to a client, consulting about choice of fabric.
To improve our work, the Nestle bought 2 compressors, 2 buffing machines, 3 guns, a screwdriver and other instruments. This year we increased the quality and volume of work. We began to produce furniture from elements of old furniture (kitchen sets, corner sets from old wardrobes).
This year we continued to run Kofoed’s social support center. Homeless people who live outside and poor inhabitants of the city come here to take shower, do laundry, get food, and haircut every day. Generally in 2014 we had almost 5 000 visits from more than 300 persons (20-35 persons come to the Center every day). The running expenses of the Center, as well as street work were supported by Kofoed’s School, “Emmaus Europe” and the Social services office of Lviv municipality. A private company “Matvol” cooks a soup for our Center every day. Some homeless people who came to the Center now live in Oselya.
Solidarity with poor people is one of the main values of the Community. Every Thursday the Community cooks dinner for a hundred of homeless people and distributes in the downtown. While distributing food we invite people to use services of the Social support center, give information about other places where they can get help. In 2014 we did food distributions more than 50 times. In winter period, during extreme cold weather the Community does another street work – every day companions, workers and volunteers of the organization went (35 times) to the downtown, stations and other places where they can find homeless people to distribute clothes, food, and take them to social or medical institutions.
For Christmas and Easter a year the Community organizes a big holiday celebration for about four hundreds poor people to share a holiday joy with them. This year we continued our traditions. Actions were accompanied by performances, songs, carols. Invited people felt like participants of a true family holiday. Traditionally local enterprises and people are donators of this action.
In the social hostel we have 17 residents, seven of them are former companions of the Community. A social enterprise, a furniture workshop where two residents of the social hostel work, and the Workshop of good deeds “Emmaus – Oselya” function in the social hostel.
The Workshop of good deeds “Emmaus – Oselya” function at the social hostel since 2012. It is another place where citizens can participate in good deeds and give away their things they don’t need any more. And here they can support Oselya’s activity buying things which are renovated in the workshop.
The workshop cooperates with other public organizations of the city. Here people can buy products of the workshop “Lyarsh – Kovcheg” and the rehabilitation centre “Preobrazhennia”, the donation foundation “Zaporuka” and cookies by the Social bakery “The Nut House”. The workshop tries to involve visitors, volunteers and all people interested in our activity. This year we organized workshops on felting finery, artistic painting on clothes, handmade notebooks. The film club “Good Films” was open at the Workshop. Every two weeks, in the evening, we invite visitors of the Workshop to watch movies. We also took part in the 9th Travelling International Festival of Documentary Films about human rights and demonstrated three documentaries and organized discussions. In November in the social hostel we opened the English course for children from low-income families.
Volunteers and friends of the organization organized different interesting meetings and trainings in Oselya. In August inhabitants and workers of the NGO “Community of mutual aid “Oselya” organized the summer camp in the Carpathians. In November volunteers of the organization “The New Acropolis” organized the training on tolerance.
This year we were glad to host our friends and partners from Emmaus organizations from Innsbruck, Iasi (Romania), Lublin. We also hosted young people from Kramatorsk within the program of the cultural exchange “East-West”, students of the program “Management of non-profit organizations”.
In 2014 we continued the project of street social and cultural magazine “Prosto neba”. It has two aims – to help the homeless to earn money and to provide social activity of the homeless, and to pay the public attention to the problem of homelessness. The magazine is supported by many famous journalists, writers and public persons.
In 2014 we published 3 issues, 9,000 copies of each and involved 5 homeless vendors to selling it. The magazine is financed by International Emmaus Movement. Traditionally the magazine was sold at the biggest book fair in Ukraine – the Book Forum in Lviv and was presented at the annual conference of the International Network of Street Magazines in Glasgow, Scotland.
Since November 2010 Oselya has cooperated with Lviv City Employment Center. They send people for paid public works in our organization. In 2014 27 persons did public works (2 in April, 2 in May, 2 in June, 3 in July, 3 in August, 3 in September, 4 in October, 4 in November, 4 in December) worked in Oselya. Human resources Lviv City Employment Center provides us with are very important for us because these projects aren’t financed by the state, and because of important work we do all together to solve social problems of our city.
The project “Developing lessons for the children” was supported by Ginger Foundation UCEF and directed at 2 children who are deprived of parental care and 3 half-orphans who live in Oselya. The project also involved 10 children from problem and incomplete families who live near the Community or the social hostel.
Due to costs of the project a social worker teacher who helped the children to learn the school program was involved (lessons occurred 6 times a week). It helped the children to feel more assurance in school and to finish the year with good results. One of the children passed the exams to the College of Modeling and Design for a specialty “a hairdresser and stylist” successfully. The teacher organized excursions and tours to the Aqua park, theater, the lake etc. Also a worker who was paid by the Employment Bureau and Lviv municipality took part in the project. She helped to organize art lessons and workshops.
In May 2014 we organized the education camp on the organization of Emmaus activity which included the following topics: “Values of life in the community”, “Spirituality of Emmaus”, “Cooperation and team activity in the community”, “Development of Emmaus in Ukraine”.
The camp took place in Berehy village, workers and inhabitants of the communities “Oselya” and “Nasha Khata” from Drohobych. In a family and friendly atmosphere we talked about Emmaus values, analyzed strong and weak points of our communities, made plans for future and checked our qualities as team members.
On the 6th of July, in the Museum of Ideas, we organized the event “Life in patchwork style” to review the functioning of clothes containers in Lviv, to share this result with Lviv inhabitants and thank them. We prepared a special documentary to show the whole way of these things – from the moment they get to containers and to the moment they get new owners. After the presentation of the film we organized the theatrical fashion show. Unusual and exclusive clothes were chosen to be shown at the подіум. The image theater “Pani Kurazh” combined collections and theater performances which weren’t concentrated only on clothes but also reflected the life and activity of the community and our participation in the life of Emmaus International Movement, creative workshops on artistic painting on clothes and decoupage of furniture.
Companions, volunteers and friends of Oselya performed as real models, demonstrating how unnecessary things get new life. The various clothes connected different people because the symbol of the event was a patchwork – blankets we sew in our workshop from remains of upholstery fabrics. These small pieces sewn together create a strong blanket and people who are united together for good deeds create a strong community. The Garage sale was organized after the show. There people could buy clothes, shoes, books from containers, and French dishes from Emmaus communities. At the sale we collected 8,500 hryvnias, and we gave 5,000 UAH from them to the community “Nasha Khata” to buy a clothes container in Drohobych.
On the 24-25th of October Oselya hosted friends and partners from Emmaus communities from Poland, Romania, France, Netherlands, Finland, and UK in Vynnyky. We talked, analyzed and planned next activity to help poor, homeless people and to develop activity which is directed at the re-using of used things. Participants of the Collective visited the Charity shop “Emmaus – Oselya”, the Kofoed’s social support center, the social hostel and the Workshop of good deeds “Emmaus – Oselya”.
On the eve of St Nicholas, Saint Nicholas visited food distribution which occurs every week near Porokhova Vezha. Every year we ensure that Saint Nicholas comes to everybody – old and little, poor and needy people. Workers of Cargill (LLC Provimi) bought more than one hundred pairs of warm socks, students of the National Lviv Polytechnic University and volunteers of NGO “Vynnyky Golden Youth” packed 180 presents (socks, scarves, mandarins, sweets) which were brought by Saint Nicholas to Porokhova Vezha.
In these times difficult for Ukraine our organization took part in the active support of Ukrainian soldiers and emigres from Donbass and the Autonomic Republic of the Crimea. In August we took part in the Patriotic charity fair in Vynnyky. We give warm work clothes to volunteers of the camp “We build Ukraine together” who renovate destroyed houses in liberated territories. Every day emigres come to us, and we give them warm clothes, furniture, household items for free.
Companions, workers and volunteers of Oselya take part in different events, spread the idea of the organization and enhance their own experience. This year two workers took part in the world’s fair of Emmaus communities in Paris and in the education visit to Poznan within the international project “The support of democratic changes in Ukraine through the activation of the community in the organization of self-help”.
Iryna Krokhmal, a national delegate of Ukraine in Emmaus, took part in weekly education for trainers. Its aim was to increase a promotion level for Emmaus ideas. And we took part in the seminar of Kofoed’s school in Denmark, the social fair Garmyder in Lviv. The editor-in-chief of “Prosto neba” Maryana Sokha partcipated in the conference of street magazines in Scotland. During the year Oselya took part in different actions and events in the city – the Book Forum, the Fair of social organizations during the Ecumenical Social week, the conference on social enterprise, the Night against poverty etc.
Oselya was one of the main organizations in the city which are solving problems of homelessness. Oselya is a member of the Coordination Council on homelessness problems at the city and region councils. Students of social work of the National Lviv Polytechnic University and the Lviv High Vocational School of Informatics and Computer Technology did practical training in our organization. Traditionally local donators – private persons and enterprises – were involved in different actions. We continued the cooperation with NGO “Narodna Dopomoha – Lviv”, “Narodna Dopomoha” from Chernivtsi and Kyiv, the Community of mutual aid “Nasha Khata”, the Center of registration and night shelter for the homeless, the Book Forum etc. Many guests from different organizations of Lviv and other Ukrainian cities visited us this year. Since 2010 Oselya is a full member of International Emmaus Movement, has its national delegate from Ukraine and takes part in Regional Councils of Emmaus Europe which occur twice a year.
INCOMES IN 2014: 2 251 543.10 UAH
EXPENDITURES IN 2014 2 207 575.68 UAH
PARTNERS IN 2014:
International Emmaus Movement, Kofoed’s school, Denmark, Lviv city council, Henry Nouwen Foundation, Lviv Educational Foundation, NGO “Samopomich”, NGO “Vynnyky Golden Youth”, NGO “Museum of Ideas”, NGO “Narodna Dopomoga – Lviv”, NGO “Narodna Dopomoga”, Chernivtsi, NGO “The community of ND”, Kyiv, Sociology and social work department of National Lviv Polytechnic University, Cultural centre “Dozvillya”, NGO “Book Forum”, Centre of registration and night shelter for homeless, Municipal centre of social services for a family, children and youth, Regional centre of social adaptation, NGO “Nasha Khata”, Drohobych
DONORS IN 2014:
Private enterprise “Matvol”, Donation foundation “Pivdennyj”, Religious community of the Roman Catholic Church in Vynnyky, Ltd. business concern “Lvivkholod”, Office of region state administration infrastructure, Ltd. “Druk service”, Ukrainian-Polish enterprise “Etrus”, JSC “Spirits producer”, Krakivsky market, Market “Shuvar”, Rotary club “Lviv – Castle”, Rotary club “Lviv Knyazhy”, “Idea Bank”, Ltd. “CieFti Ukraina”, Housing and communal infrastructure office, Restaurant “Vyshyvanka”, Ltd. “Khlib-trade”, Cargill (LLC Provimi), Nestle Ukraine.