Anna Bezkrovna grew up in the village of Myronivsky near Debaltseve. After graduating from the local school, she entered the Donetsk State Machine-Building Academy in Kramatorsk, and later got a job at the Energomashspetsstal machine-building plant.
After the start of the full-scale invasion of Russia, the Bezkrovnykh family moved to the city of Oleksandriya in Kirovohrad region. Soon after, Anna got a job as a volunteer and then joined the board of the Oleksandria Assistance Center. The center's team included IDPs from Kharkiv, Mariupol, Kramatorsk, Luhansk and other cities in the east of the country. They sorted clothes, prepared hygiene and food packages for IDP families. For Anna, this was the first step towards a new activity that would later change her life dramatically.
To avoid repetition and to have a complete picture of the needs, Anna created a unified database of recipients at the Oleksandriya Assistance Center and introduced electronic coupons for the distribution of humanitarian kits. In this way, humanitarian aid is distributed transparently and efficiently in the community: families who really need support receive what they need, and resources are used as efficiently as possible.
Due to the scale of the war, the number of internally displaced persons has increased significantly compared to 2014. So the local council was looking for a person to help cope with this amount of work. And it was Anna who was offered to work as an assistant to the deputy mayor of the Oleksandriya council.
"I am a bridge between the Assistance Center and the local authorities. Thanks to volunteering, I know about the urgent needs of people. Thanks to my work in the city council, I am familiar with reporting and can communicate with international donors," explains Anna.
When the first waves of humanitarian aid decreased due to donors' reorientation to frontline communities, Anna and her team decided not to stop their activities but to look for new formats of work.
Thus, two key projects were born with the support of the Oleksandria City Council and volunteers of the Oleksandria Assistance Center: Development Space for IDPs at the youth library and Space 3D at the House of Children and Youth Creativity.
The 3D Space offers programs for different age groups: from classes with mothers for the youngest (1-2 years old) to programming courses for teenagers (9-12 years old). For adults, there are yoga, art therapy, master classes, and various trainings.
In three years, 17 projects have been implemented: 6 joint projects with partners and 11 of our own. They include training in business planning for displaced women, the Project Proposal Workshop, an environmental competition in schools, the Volunteer Plus youth program, and the creation of an electronic directory on Telegram.
In three years, Anna has gone from a factory engineer to a public sector leader. Her experience shows that IDPs can become not only successful members of new communities, but also contribute to their development.
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