The recovery of a country begins with the recovery of its citizens. That is why the Masha Fund NGO, with the support of the UN Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund, continues to help women and children affected by the war. This cooperation has already proven its effectiveness in previous years and is now entering a new stage.
The partnership will focus on three main areas, implemented by the Masha Fund with technical support from the UN Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF). The WPHF is a flexible, rapid funding instrument that supports quality interventions aimed at enhancing local women’s capacity to prevent conflict, respond to crises and emergencies, and seize key peacebuilding opportunities.
The first direction is the eight changes of the psycho-emotional stabilization program, the Unbreakable Mom. This means that more than 300 women and their children who have lost their relatives, survived occupation or captivity, will be able to participate in the project.
“The Unbreakable Mom program has proven its effectiveness in the most difficult cases. As part of this project, we work with the most difficult categories of women who have gone through personal hell,” notes Tetiana Muratkina, director of the Masha Fund NGO. “This project is not just about psychological support; it is about working with trauma, restoring internal ties within the family, and building trust between its members.”
The second area of work of the Masha Fund NGO, which will be implemented with the support of WPHF, is the Unbreakable Mental Recovery Center’s activities, which include individual consultations, support groups, and psychoeducational lectures. The center’s programs help women stabilize their emotional state and restore resources for life in new realities.
A separate component of the project is the Leaders of Change. Equal to Equal, covering communities of Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Mykolaiv regions. This is a unique project because the facilitators who lead support groups within its framework are graduates of various programs of the Masha Fund and have been trained as group facilitators. And now they help women receive basic psychological support and unite in local mutual aid communities.
“As part of the Leaders of Change project, we work in regions where such support is extremely limited,” emphasizes Tetiana Muratkina. “Our goal is to form sustainable communities in which women support each other and jointly solve the problems of their communities.”
Cooperation with the UN Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund is confirmation of the high professionalism and effectiveness of the Masha Fund NGO’s approaches in the field of psychosocial support.
“We are grateful to WPHF for their trust and the opportunity to expand our programs,” concludes Tetiana Muratkina. “Together, we help women recover so they can rebuild their families, communities, and country.”
REFERENCE
The United Nations Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF) is the only global mechanism created exclusively to support women’s participation in peace and security-building processes and humanitarian assistance. Led by a cross-section of civil society, governments, and the UN, WPHF is a multi-partner trust fund that mobilizes urgently needed funding for local women-led organizations and works with women on the front lines to build lasting peace. Since 2016, WPHF has provided financing and strengthened the capacity of over 1,000 local women’s civil society organizations working on the Women, Peace, and Security agenda and implementing humanitarian activities in 41 crisis-affected countries worldwide.
The Masha Fund is a public organization founded in 2020 to combat all forms of violence. After the full-scale invasion began, the Fund has helped women and children affected by the war.
