Rotary club "Kharkiv Renaissance"

An ongoing Russian invasion has caused colossal destruction of residential and communal infrastructure in many Ukrainian regions, especially in the Kharkiv region.

Our Rotary Club cannot remain aloof from recovery processes in Kharkiv city and Ukraine as a whole – this is our public duty, and we would be honoured to serve our country, which 101% goes along with the principles of service and the mission of “Rotary International”. From the first days of the full-scale invasion, our teammates were among those who helped hundreds of Kharkiv region residents overcome numerous risks of war every day: collecting and delivering humanitarian aid, organising a bomb shelter in Kharkiv in the spring of 2022, donating daily for strengthening and of the defence forces, among other activities. Also, the members of our Rotary Club have had and continue to have long-term and very positive working relations with many small municipalities of the Kharkiv, Sumy and Poltava regions which were either de-occupied from Russian troops in 2022 or accepted thousands of our compatriots as internally displaced persons.

Most of these lands suffered significant or critical destruction of all infrastructure, particularly the Tsyrkuny amalgamated community (GPS 50.097615, 36.402822), which was under occupation since the first day of the invasion (February 24, 2022). And from its administrative centre, Tsyrkuny village, located 5 km from Kharkiv) Russians conducted numerous daily shellings of Kharkiv and its civilian residents. At least 60% of private buildings of the Tsyrkuny community have been damaged or destroyed. Before the invasion, this community had 13,000 inhabitants, and now 3,200 people (25%) remain; most of these people have their houses and private capital structures in their yards partially or entirely destroyed and are not fit for their habitation.

It needs more urgent and long-term humanitarian and technical aid to residents. The issue of processing construction waste – such as broken bricks, concrete and aerated concrete, slate, and non-metallic fences – is vital and will allow the beginning of rebuilding, as it will:

• Free up space for the construction of new housing where there are living and interested private owners who want to rebuild their lives and livelihoods;
• Help redevelop local roads and roadsides;
• (Accelerate demining there.

This problem is greatly exacerbated by the fact that 90-99% of the municipal and private road and construction equipment was either cynically stolen or purposefully destroyed by Russian barbarians in March 2022. Unfortunately, regional authorities and the national government cannot fully address this issue today.

With the beginning of the successful de-occupation of Ukrainian territories in March 2022 (Kyiv, Sumy and Chernihiv regions), the volunteer movement “Dobrobat” was born in central Ukraine and is growing stronger. It’s a volunteer construction ‘battalions’ of ordinary people who help victims in the urgent restoration of housing, facilities, and social infrastructure on the de-occupied territories. In the absence of proper governmental support, even partial aiding in the technical works (technical clearing of destruction and restoration of rural roads) is very relevant and invaluable from a social, humanitarian and engineering point of view.

Also, the restoration of construction and road works in Tsirkuny and nearby villages will undoubtedly be supported by the Hero City of Kharkiv, as it is the historical “first capital” and the second largest city of Ukraine, with a population of 1.5 million people.

The purpose is to direct united local Ukrainian civil forces and Rotary funds to the wartime and post-war recovery of the war-affected Ukrainian territories to deploy a joint Ukrainian-European network of people-centred educational and infrastructure projects.

This “Dobrobat-Renaissance” program is a logical and necessary element in preparing the municipal territory to implement a new ambitious project – an innovative gymnasium for local children. So it perfectly fits into the preparation plan for the large-scale program “MACRo” in the Kharkiv region – to create a network of European humanitarian and economic ecosystems of services that will shape the people of the 21st-century, located in culturally and economically robust ‘oases-communities’ in Ukraine and the EU.

This goal is achievable through a number of tasks:

• Organising the sorting and primary processing of construction waste (from destroyed private houses – with the consent of their owners) to clear these sites for new private housing and reconstruction of non-central local roads in the Kharkiv region;
• Raising the processing capabilities of construction waste to the volume of at least two objects (houses) per day with the involvement of other interested private and communal organisations and preparing the area for the construction of new infrastructure and housing;
• Based on already established processes (stages 1 and 2) – organising the rehabilitation and retraining of the forcibly released labour force and demobilised soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine into demanded professions – construction and related professions and new forms of commerce (e.g., e-commerce on new digital platforms).

1) Project № 1 “The Renaissance Service & Technical Centre”,

2) Project № 2 “Scaling of the Renaissance Service and Technical Centre”,

3) Project № 3 “Professional Reborn”:

retraining of temporarily unemployed residents and former military personnel for further reconstruction, with available technical means and resources of the «Dobrobat Renaissance» and partner organizations from Ukraine and Europe.

• A minimum of 150 affected local families and at least one affected rural municipality will receive humanitarian and technical aid for the primary processing of construction waste – during 2023;
• Strengthening of the Rotary movement’s image and reputation as a contributor to urgent and vital projects in Ukraine for inclusive development;
• Involved local youth (at least 15 people) in restoration work to further engage them in Rotaty’s values and create a positive example for local youth;
• The accomplishment of the higher mission of serving the Club and the local Community while strengthening the technological and reputational basis for scaling the project to the following stages;
• The accomplishment of the noble mission of serving the Country and the Ukrainian people while strengthening the war-affected Tsirkuny community in its preparations for further strategic development in the context of European integration of Ukraine.

• This initiative is a response to the local administration’s formalised urgent need to attract construction and road equipment to resolve construction debris and speed up demining operations.

• These activities and appropriate heavy-duty equipment will be helpful for at least two years – 2023-2024 locally. Their primary beneficiaries are the local population and local administration, at least in the Tsirkuny community of the Kharkiv region.

• The program is a logical foundation for an extensive «MACRo» recovery program programme in the Kharkiv region. It is set on parallel implementation in a network format in several municipalities of Ukraine and Western Europe. E.g., the town of Esch-sur-Alzette (Luxembourg) has shown interest in participating in 2022.

• The «MACRo» program was developed and initiated by the members of our Rotary Club in September 2022.

We guarantee that all large-sized equipment received:

• Will be equipped with modern GPS trackers and corresponding licensed software, enabling 24/7 tracking from anywhere globally;
• Will never be transferred under the ownership of any local municipality but will be in the property of our Rotary Club (before scaling up the project) – to prevent the risk of inappropriate use of the equipment;
• Will be stored in secure storage – a separate, guarded, fenced private area;
• If necessary, the Rotary Club will carry out equipment repairs (if appropriate) or address the qualified professionals/services.