Creating a Movie Theater in the Village of Vavylove, Shevchenkove Community, Mykolaiv Oblast of Ukraine

Target audience — Residents of the community, including 100 children and young adults.

Project amount —  5000 USD

Expected effect — The project socializes approximately 100 children in the village of Vavylove. This will allow them to receive non-formal education, quality leisure time, and participate in the development of their community in the future. 

The village of Vavylove in the Mykolaiv Oblast is home to 420 people, 100 of whom are young people. For nine months in 2022, the village was occupied by Russian troops. At the time of the Russian invasion, 174 residents remained in the village, including 13 children. During the entire period of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, 20% of the buildings were damaged by shelling. Three houses were completely destroyed.

The main place where villagers gather is the old village club. Here they receive help from various organizations, and young people can play table tennis.

However, this is not enough for a quality community center. To make the club more suitable for organizing recreational activities, local leaders and volunteers are replacing the emergency electrical system in the building with funds from Global Giving. In addition, they are repairing the damaged stage.

Svitlana Kondratieva, head of the club, Vavylove village, Shevchenkove. The club will be used to create a movie theater. 

Svitlana Kondratieva, the head of the club, says that in the 1970s, the club used to have a movie theater. At that time, watching movies together was popular. When Svitlana told the young people about it, they said that they regretted that they could not gather for movie screenings and discussions today. They got excited about the idea of reviving the village theater. They dream that the first movie they will watch in the renovated cinema space will be a modern Ukrainian film. The young people plan to watch movies and then discuss them and, for example, play board games.

From left to right: Oleksandra, Viktoriia, Ruslan – youth leaders of Vavylove.

“We could create a group on social media and decide together what to watch and plan our viewing. Most of all, I would like to have a big screen,” Oleksandra representative of the youth leaders of Vavylove notes.

15 active teenagers, aged 12 to 17, are ready to organize and manage the work of the movie theater, and to help with its preparation before it starts. To make this possible, we are collecting donations to purchase the necessary equipment and supplies: a projector, screen, chairs, and board games.