The St. Nicholas Day Care Center held a series of leadership training sessions for young people, aimed at teaching them how to take responsibility for others, how to act together and change the reality around them. Volunteers are involved in jointly shaping the Day Care Center, taking care of one another and their well-being (including mental health). The goal of the series of meetings was for young people to prepare their own mini social projects centered around promoting a healthy lifestyle, with an emphasis on mental health. The young participants developed their projects under the guidance of trainers, and will subsequently implement these projects in Ivano-Frankivsk.

Already at the first meeting, the participants began planning their original initiatives.

One of the first ideas was to organize a Children's Day. Solomija, who attended the Day Care Center two years ago and is now studying at a pedagogical university, proposed that the day be dedicated to the topic of children's rights. Together with a group of participants, and with the support of the Day Care Center's staff, they will prepare the event, planning, among other things, a meeting with a psychologist to convey important content to children in an accessible way.

Eva, a scholarship recipient and volunteer of the St. Nicholas Foundation, currently living in Vinnitsa and studying in Kyiv, has decided to join the course: she plans to become an animator during one of the half-school camps, and to take part in a camp in the Carpathian Mountains as an educator.

Katja, an alumna of the Day Care Center and an active volunteer with the Malta Relief Service of Ivano-Frankivsk, has planned a mini-project named “the Bicycle Day” for older alumni and volunteers as part of her training. The event is scheduled for July, and Katja is already actively working to implement the event, wanting to promote movement and active leisure activities as a prevention of many problems affecting today's youth.

Angelina, - also an alumna of the Day Care Center and a volunteer, daughter of a volunteer of the Malta Relief Service and a member of the “Romantics” Club for wheelchair users, proposed a return to the organization of the Club's sports day, which used to be a regular event, held cyclically before the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Angelina and her team of young volunteers are planning a series of meetings to better prepare for working with people who use wheelchairs. They want to normalize the presence of people with disabilities in public spaces and educate children and young people about supporting people who are forced to use wheelchairs on a daily basis.

Another group of trainees decided to join a camp in the Carpathian Mountains organized for the charges of the St. Nicholas Day Care Center and take it upon themselves to organize evening program points.

Leadership training is aimed at getting young people to work together and empowering them. The acquisition of leadership competencies is expected to make young people take responsibility for the local community and the sustainability of activities aimed at children and young people in the future. Approximately 15 people took part in the activity, so it retained its workshop character.

The local partner (Maltese Aid Service of Ivano-Frankivsk) has developed and tested a training program to strengthen the sense of agency and leadership attitudes among young people. Youth volunteers are involved in the local community and in running social projects, and take part in a number of actions carried out by the Maltese Relief Service of Ivano-Frankivsk, such as the “St. Nicholas Goes to Orphans” action, and especially in activities at the St. Nicholas Day Care Center, which addresses psychological and educational assistance to children disadvantaged by war.

Thanks to the donors of the Saint Nicholas Foundation, thousands of children in need have been helped. However, we must not forget that the war is still going on and the sea of needs is growing. We appeal for help and ask for your generosity. How to help?

1) Make an on-line donation at mikolaj.org.pl/Ukraina

2) Make a donation to:

Fundacja Świętego Mikołaja

Volkswagen Bank Polska S.A

37 2130 0004 2001 0299 9993 0002

transfer title: darowizna na pomoc dzieciom na Ukrainie

In 2025, the operation of the St. Nicholas Day Care Center in Ivano-Frankivsk is co-financed from the state budget under Polish development cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland, as part of the project ‘Providing psychological assistance to children harmed by warfare in Ukraine’, in the amount of PLN 493,400.