The trainings offered by Brave are four-hour, in-person sessions held at educational institutions and specialized facilities. This is not a lecture format: the girls immediately practice the skills they learn, work with a psychologist, and master basic self-defense techniques. During the sessions, participants learn to understand their personal boundaries, stand up for them, cope with stress and the effects of bullying, and find inner support and confidence in everyday life.
In 2026, the trainings will take place in six regions: Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, Lviv, and Zhytomyr. Mykolaiv is a new location for the project, where the team is already building a local network of specialists.
“In the Zhytomyr region, we are actively working with small towns and villages where many internally displaced families live. And it is there that girls are especially engaged and motivated,” says Anastasiia Kariakina, manager of the Brave project. “In Zaporizhzhia, the first trainings have already received support at the city level: they were covered by local authorities and the media.”
According to the team, this year the project is also expanding its audience. The trainings will be held not only in schools but also in specialized institutions.
“We have started working with more vulnerable groups. For example, in Kharkiv, social services are helping us reach girls who are in foster or guardianship care. These are teenagers who especially need support and a sense of safety,” Kariakina explains. “Overall, we are constantly expanding our cooperation: we work not only with military administrations but also with social institutions to reach those who need this support the most.”
The Masha Foundation emphasizes that Brave is not only about self-defense skills but also about building inner resilience.
“For us, this is more than an educational project. It is a long-term investment in the strength and safety of the next generation,” says Tetiana Muratkina, director of the Masha Foundation. “We want girls to feel their own value now, to learn how to protect themselves, and to speak up about difficult situations. Since the project began in 2022, we have already seen many examples proving that the program works and plays an important role in shaping teenagers. After the trainings, participants often come back to us with personal requests: they seek psychological support, share their experiences, and sometimes, for the first time, dare to speak about violence or difficult life situations. And we continue to support them. That is why we are developing Brave further—so that this support can become available to even more teenagers.”
About the Project
Brave is a program by the Masha Foundation that teaches teenage girls to defend their personal boundaries and stand up to physical and psychological violence. Since its launch, 12,000 girls aged 14 to 18 have taken part in the Brave program and trainings.
The project is implemented with the support of the International Gender Equality Prize of the Government of Finland.
