“Response to the needs of people in Zaporizhzhia region”: how STEP NGO works in the tenth year of war

Publication date: August 14, 2024

Author: Yulia Bilyk, communication manager of the Legal Development Network

For the Zaporizhzhia-based NGO Strategies and Technologies for Effective Partnership (hereinafter referred to as STEP NGO), the provision of legal and psychological assistance in a comprehensive manner has been a priority over the past few years. Within the first half of 2024 as part of a program to strengthen the capacity of local organisations to respond to the challenges of war, Legal Development Network (LDN) provided financial support for this activity. Read about the results achieved, changes in the work and challenges seen by the NGO STEP in this article.

From working with youth to a wide range of tasks

STEP has been operating in Zaporizhzhia Oblast for 15 years. However, the name and positioning of the organisation were quite different at the beginning. 
“We started in 2009 as a Zaporizhzhia City Youth Organisation. In 2019, we rebranded and became STEP – Strategies and Technologies for Effective Partnership. Our work included many vectors: youth policy, community development, and legal aid. But it so happened that over the past three years, the latter vector has become the key one. And in this context, being part of the Legal Development Network greatly contributes to this work, inspires and, as practice shows, opens up new opportunities,” says Oleksii Ahentaiev, head of the NGO. 

Oleksii recalls two years ago, for the first time as the head of the organisation, he took part in a Legal Development Network Members meeting and notes that a lot has changed since then – not only in the work of STEP but also in the LDN as a whole.

STEP in the Network is a powerful team that can be relied on
According to Oleksii Ahentaiev, cooperation between LDN and STEP is primarily about mutual reinforcement, close communication, the ability to consult quickly, exchange ideas, and jointly develop an action plan.

“It’s good to know that there is such a strong organisation nearby that communicates with major international partners and covers different regions of Ukraine. Even this knowledge alone is enough to inspire new projects,” says Oleksii Ahentaiev.

Meanwhile, STEP, which has a strong team of 12 people, is proud that its results contribute to the Network’s achievements. 
“When we summarise our work, we are confident that we are strengthening the LDN with our indicators, in particular in terms of providing free legal aid. We can be relied on. We have a horizontal management style, we quickly find the right people who quickly join the processes, we are open to change and work for the future, thinking several steps ahead,” the head of the NGO emphasises.

Following the plan, but open to change
At the end of 2023, the STEP NGO wrote a development strategy for the next two years, taking into account today’s reality. 
“We realised that we don’t have a lot of people, so we need to go step by step: we are working according to the plan,” says Oleksii Ahentaiev.

At the same time, the organisation is flexible and open to change. In 2022, after the full-scale invasion, STEP, like many other NGOs, activated the humanitarian aid program, delivering food, medicine and household chemicals to people in need. Now the priority is to provide legal and psychological assistance to the population, as well as education. Advocacy is a new area for the NGO.

“We not only provide legal aid, but also try to respond to negative phenomena, inconsistencies, and gaps in legislation. Since we work in communities, we react and try to implement changes to improve the legal framework in the country,” emphasises Anton Stasik, the lawyer at the NGO STEP.

Representatives of the STEP NGO are convinced that their team is able to respond to any circumstances: if necessary, they will provide humanitarian assistance and join the processes of reconstruction and reintegration.

Synergistic effect

In the first half of 2024, lawyers of the STEP NGO provided residents of the Zaporizhzhia region and internally displaced persons with 201 individual consultations and held 5 public events online and in the format of group consultations on principal issues in communities. The lawyers advise local residents, internally displaced persons and war-affected people on how to properly record property damage and theft, and help people file claims through Diia.
Legal counselling is provided in synergy with psychological counselling. After all, often a person who applies for legal aid also needs psychological help, and vice versa.

“What is the strength and accuracy of this approach? The fact that we respond to the needs of our region, to the needs of the people who live here. As a frontline city, we live in such conditions that psychological help is extremely necessary, and people are increasingly aware of this. We not only provide assistance in the form of algorithms for dealing with certain situations, but also educate people, both legally and about the fact that it is normal and necessary to seek psychological help, because it is better to pay attention to symptoms in time than to treat chronic diseases for a long time,” explains Anton Stasik.

In February 2024, STEP continued its cooperation with the Yakymivka Territorial Community in Zaporizhzhia Region and the teaching staff of Zaporizhzhia General Education Sanatorium Boarding School No. 7. Over the course of six months, the organisation’s psychologists provided individual counselling to 30 community members and held five group sessions.

Preserving the identity of the relocated communities

Speaking about the prospects for the near future, Oleksii and Anton talk about the need to support relocated communities, people who have left their homes in the occupied territories and moved to Zaporizhzhia. It is difficult for IDPs to find their place in the new communities, and there is a so-called crisis of sense.

Oleksii Ahentaiev gives the example of the Yakymivka Village Community, where about 60% of residents moved to Zaporizhzhia. “As rural residents, they cannot find a job in the city because they do not have the appropriate qualifications. Our idea is that, for example, the city of Kherson, Mykolaiv or any other city that needs specialists who know how to work on the land can invite these people to live and work in urban communities as a diaspora.”

“We want to preserve the identity of the relocated communities, the connection of people with the community, so that they identify themselves as ‘I am Enerhodar’, ‘I am Mariupol’, so that it is not a name, but a real identity. This solves several issues at once. First, it helps to find the meaning of the community’s existence now. Secondly, it creates a community that will return to their towns and villages after the liberation and starts rebuilding them,” Anton Stasik emphasises.

NetworkThe ideas for supporting the relocated communities were supported by the Legal Development Network. Joint closed discussions are planned to find tools to respond to the challenges faced by the relocated communities. This is not only an opportunity to help residents of the temporarily occupied communities, but also to strengthen the brand of both the organisation and the Union.

The material was created with the support of the international charity platform GlobalGiving, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.The content of the publication is the sole responsibility of the Legal Development Network Non-Governmental Union.

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