Before I arrived, everyone I met told me it was a beautiful city and that it was wonderful I was going to Lviv. «The best» even, said with a dreamy look in the respondent's eyes. It was to the point that I was worried that I would be let down upon arrival.
I have not been. Nor have I been disappointed by the women and organizations whose reputations preceded them throughout the rest of Ukraine. Lviv has the reputation of the progressive, activist heart of Ukraine. The center for the movers and the shakers.
Recently my attention has shifted towards writing a final report, getting in a few last meetings and thinking over what has been an amazing three months, but I want to briefly highlight some of the work being done in Lviv Oblast.
This evening I met for the second time with Dariya Kulchytska, Director of the Lviv Oblast Branch of 50/50 NGO which promotes equal political participation of men and women. They encorage women throughout the Oblast to run for political office and work on breaking down the stereotypes which have stopped most Ukrainian women from excelling in the political areana. Liliya Gook, who directs the Gender Resource Center and provides analysis and direction to government officials on implementing laws and programs on gender, also joined us. In addition to her voluntary work at the Resource Center (and participation in what was an incredible list of other projects and trainings in the Oblast and nationally), Ms. Gook runs a club for boys and girls called Юнка which is the Lviv Branch of the «The Gender Interactive Theatre of the School of Equal Opportunities». At the club, the students create their own plays about different social issues and then act them out for other schools, younger students, in the streets or at other events. Last year the students made a film that was shown in Belarus, Poland, Germany and Sweden. Lecia Matviivna, director of the Lviv Oblast Center for Youth hosted us at the Center's office. Ms. Matviivna, like many of the women I have spoken with in Ukraine, went through Winrock International's leadership trainings in the mid-1990s and worked for several years as a trainer in Winrock's programs for middle-aged women in crisis situations and unemployed women. Through that work she realized that very little attention was being given to youth by the government. She said she now sees the younger generation as a critical target group and wants to encourage young men and women in their choices as they enter the workforce and also to create a productive environment for the many young people who have left Ukraine to find employment to return to.
The name that was most frequently recommended to me before coming to Lviv was that of Lubov Maksymovych, Director of the Western Center “Women's Perspectives.” Women's Perspectives is housed in a shopping center about 2 ½ hours by foot (although it turns out only 20 minutes by bus) from the center of Lviv. Ms. Maksymovych told me the unemployment rate in this area was particularly high and that a lot of their clients live or work nearby. Women's Perspectives works on a wide range of issues related to women and they have a shelter for victims of trafficking and domestic violence, although at present they there is no money for operating it. They also have a strong research arm and recently produced a booklet on discrimination in the job market in Lviv Oblast with particular attention to sex and age-based discrimination in hiring and job advertisement. In the fall, they will publish findings on the prevalence of domestic violence in Lviv Oblast. At present there are no reliable national (or regional that I am aware of) statistics on domestic violence; which unfortunately signifies to many that the problem does not exist.
Thanks to help from Women's Perspectives, I was also able to meet with Andriy Dobriansky, Deputy Director of the Lviv Oblast Department for Family and Youth a few days later. Mr. Dobriansky is young and was very engaging and gave me a full hour of his time even though the Prime Minister was apparently due for a visit that day and there was a flood of papers washing in and out of his office to be signed. As in Kharkiv, Lviv Oblast recently set up a coordinating body of government officials and NGOs on gender issues and Mr. Dobriansky also said that the Oblast had increased the percentage of the Department's budget directed towards gender issues from 4 percent in previous years to 10 percent this year.
A few of the other interesting individuals I have met in Lviv are Oksana Kis, Research Fellow at the Institute of Ethnology and Director of the Lviv Research Center “Women and Society”, and Alison Case, head of the Peace Corp Gender and Development Working Group (GAD) and a Volunteer based in Horokiv (located between Lviv and Lutsk). Dr. Kis was recommended to me for her recent work on images of Yulia Tymoshenko which is fascinating and can be read at the following site: http://www.yorku.ca/soi/_Vol_7_2/_HTML/Kis.html. She has worked since 2000 on introducing classes on gender in Lviv universities and now four universities offer a range of classes. No where in Ukraine is it possible to received a degree in “Gender Studies” or “Women's Studies” but these courses are important for introducing the topics both as a potential career path and an area of academic interest. Alison Case said GAD recently started a partnership with the International Organization for Migration so that Volunteers can go through IOM's training programs on trafficking and receive a variety of educational materials for their local classes and workshops.
This is only a brief snapshot of the work being done in Lviv and a few of the individuals involved. Since people regularly inquire, I will say that I do find Lviv different in some ways that the rest of Ukraine. However, the organizations I have met with here maintain contacts with work being done in many other areas of Ukraine and some of the most interesting and successful projects I have heard about were collaborations with Kiev, Kharkiv and other cities.
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