On the occasion of International Volunteer Day, as part of the DocudaysUA Traveling Festival, Chernihiv residents saw the film “Southern Border”

As part of the annual 11th International Traveling Documentary Film Festival on Human Rights DocudaysUA and on the eve of the celebration of International Volunteer Day, a screening of the film “Southern Border” was held for students of the Chernihiv Institute of Information, Business and Law.

A few years ago, Ukrainians did not fully understand the importance of volunteer work. The questions arose: “is it really free?”, “what do you get out of it then?”, “why waste your time for nothing?”. Nevertheless, when there was an urgent need to unite and coordinate efforts to provide assistance to those who really need it in the extreme conditions of modern times, people of different professions, social and material statuses united and today are doing a socially important job: helping internally displaced persons, ATO participants and their families.

– A few years ago, we knew very little about how to join movements and associations of citizens, because it was not popular. Today, the volunteer movement and public organizations are a very effective option for activity related to what is happening in Ukraine. – notes Nataliya Piddubna, a lawyer at the Chernihiv Public Committee for the Protection of Human Rights.

After all, in the spring of 2014, Crimea was annexed and the troops of the Russian Federation were introduced into the territory of Ukraine. Given the previous “reforms of the Ukrainian army” and its unpreparedness for combat operations of this scale, from the very first days there was a need to coordinate efforts and assistance from the population. In order to avoid chaotic behavior of those wishing to help and to organize the assistance process to ensure its effectiveness, public activists began to create volunteer assistance centers. Often, these are public movements of different directions, which are able, each contributing its part, to create a powerful assistance mechanism in emergency situations.

It is about such a volunteer center – the Kherson Military Assistance Fund – that the film “Southern Border” talks about, which shows a journey with volunteer Natalia, who carries necessary things to the military, who are on the southern border of the country. After all, after the annexation of Crimea, the Kherson region became a border region and was under great threat of invasion by the occupying forces into its territory.

The entire territory of Ukraine is involved in this process, so representatives of the following centers in Chernihiv were invited to the screening of the film of the XI International Traveling Documentary Film Festival on Human Rights Docudays.ua: the Unified Volunteer Center and the Women’s Self-Defense Hundred of Chernihiv Region.

– The volunteer movement in Ukraine began with the Maidan. After all, it was then that initiatives of public organizations were formed that ensured the supply of food and clothing to the Maidan. In Chernihiv, a Memorandum was signed by public organizations of the city to create a Unified Volunteer Center for joint assistance to internally displaced persons and ATO fighters, – comments on the situation Tetyana Opryshko, a representative of the Unified Volunteer Center in Chernihiv.

Also, after the screening of the film, representatives of the Women’s Self-Defense Hundred spoke in more detail about the process of collecting, preparing and transferring necessary things for fighters to the ATO zone. Svitlana Koroleva, commander of the Women’s Self-Defense Hundred of Chernihiv Region, told the students more about their work:

– We help all conscripts from Chernihiv, the number of whom is about 7,000 servicemen. In any battalion there are conscripts from Chernihiv – from 2 to 10 people on average. We have several units: those who are specifically engaged in helping the families of those killed in the ATO; a medical detachment that deals with medicines and hospitalization of military personnel; a legal battalion, which includes volunteer lawyers and provides legal assistance to fighters.

The film itself raises issues not only of providing ATO fighters with food and ammunition, but also of what the state should do, a role that in modern conditions is taken on by volunteer activists of public movements. The issues of human rights protection of ATO fighters and internally displaced persons are also important. For example, there is a whole network of public reception centers in Ukraine providing free legal aid in the network of organizations that are part of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union. In Chernihiv, this is the Public Organization “MART” and the Chernihiv Public Committee for the Protection of Human Rights.

Iryna Brokh