The Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 was met with extensive resistance and immediate response from Ukrainian civil society – from the evacuation of people to using art as a tool of non-violent resistance. For decades, the community of mediators and dialogue facilitators (CoP) has promoted a culture of dialogue and non-violent conflict resolution in Ukraine and has developed its professional identity. After the war broke up in 2014, it became an important enabler of social cohesion and resilience at the national and local levels.
The community was able to mobilize itself and respond to the invasion of February 2022. They gathered around a network of 30 NGOs to formulate a joint statement on the war and dialogue. Since then, mediators and dialogue facilitators have implemented several volunteer initiatives to address people’s needs on the ground and enabled them to shift from emergency response to recovery and development, even during the war. The major innovation of the CoP in this regard was an integration of psychological and psycho-social help with conventional mediation and dialogue approaches in community work.
In April 2022, the CoP set up mobile teams of mediators and psychologists offering psychological and mediation/dialogue services in the West of Ukraine for IDPs and host communities in shelters and humanitarian hubs. From April to December 2022, nine mobile teams were active in Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, Ternopil, Rivne, Stryi, Uzhorod, Mukachevo, and supported by various donors. They rendered services to more than 8 000 people, including IDPs, administration of shelters, activists and volunteers (most of them being women). In addition, CoP members offered family mediation services combined with mental health and psycho-social support for families with children affected by the war. They worked with schools to provide trauma-sensitive conflict management training for educators and improved youngsters’ conflict resolution skills. The CoP members actively engaged in research on conflict response practices within Ukrainian civil society and dividing/uniting narratives on social media. Based on the later research, members of the CoP network carried out a nationwide information campaign on social media, reaching 20 million people, to promote unifying narratives and counter the dividing ones in society.
Revitalizing the societal fabric broken by the war is necessary to rebuild a future Ukraine society. It is important to think strategically about this, even in times of war and besides emergency response. Therefore, CoP is currently promoting and piloting inclusive community dialogues for local recovery; and developing people-centered approaches for future Transitional Justice.