Tie2/Світлана Кострикіна

Last summer, a video went viral on social networks – young people with club clothes with techno music cleaning rubble in a war-ravaged Ukrainian village. This is how the world heard about Repair Together – a volunteer organization that organizes cleaning, repair and reconstruction in affected areas, combining hard work with cultural recreation – dance, music, humor and new acquaintances. One of the founders of Repair Together, Darya Kosyakova, told us about how many houses the volunteers have already managed to rebuild, how the local people treat young people, and who is out of place in the community.

How did the story of Repair Together begin?

Even before the full-scale war, we formed such a community of friends and acquaintances, we traveled together, had parties. When the full-scale invasion began, Vika, one of our co-founders, offered to go to Gostomel and organize a “dog toloka” there – to help the local animal shelter: repair enclosures, clean something, simple physical work. 40-50 people gathered at that time. There were three such talks, and then Vika and another of our co-founders – Dima, suggested going to the de-occupied Chernihiv region, because Kyiv region was receiving a lot of attention, and few people knew about the situation in Chernihiv region. So we went on a reconnaissance, saw everything with our own eyes, got to know people who needed help. The day before, I had just resigned from my job in the IT field – because at that moment I understood that it did not correspond to my values, that I could not do creative work for America and France, which were in no way related to what is happening in Ukraine.

And we realized that we can also gather people to help the residents of the destroyed villages of Chernihiv Oblast – but on a larger scale and more efficiently. I created an Instagram page, designed the necessary information so that we could go out into the world already with a name and a logo, and that’s how it all began. And already in June, we officially registered as an organization.

How did the idea of ​​combining volunteer work with the party format come about?

It happened spontaneously, by itself, because we are what we are, and we have always done it. There are many creative people among us, and first time when in the evening after work we all gathered around the fire – the special atmosphere inspired someone to play something, someone to sing something. And we arranged a small, literally for half an hour, spontaneous performance for the locals. Then Masha Kvitka joined us, she sang, one of her friends accompanied her on guitar and cello, and after that we started thinking about looking more in that direction. Vasya Baidak worked with us in the third district, and after work he decided to do a little post-stand-up – it also went well and received a lot of positive feedback.

And from such microformats we came to what we have now. Because they saw how important it is, how psychologically easier it is for people after hard work to allow themselves to rest, rejoice, dance, just sit by the fire and feel alive. It’s incredibly unifying, and that’s why people come back again and again, ready to work on Saturday and Sunday after a week at their main job. It is great to see volunteers who come every weekend or every other weekend. Of course, they get tired, but it is a pleasant tiredness.

Last year, at the third rave party, we installed a screen on the stage, there was a broadcast from Lithuania – when our DJs played, they broadcast in the club, when theirs played – they broadcast in our place.

How many people usually participate in tolokas?

Over the entire Repair Together activity, we have already managed to attract more than four thousand people. This season, our record crowd was Kupalska – then 400 volunteers came. Before that, the maximum was 300. It is also important for us to maintain a balance between our regular volunteers and new ones. Now it is about 50/50, but this is only according to my feelings, I do not have exact statistics yet. Starting this season, we have a chatbot, so it will be easier to keep track of scores.

And how do you manage to coordinate so many volunteers? Although 20 people already work in our organization, this is still not enough to delegate areas of responsibility, as is done, for example, in IT companies. We all have to juggle many roles. But in short, Vika is responsible for the toloka team. There is also a division in the toloka team – who coordinates the volunteers in the buses, who coordinates at the facilities, who is responsible for the kitchen. In general, our scheme looks like this: people register through a chatbot, get into a joint chat. In the chat, a person receives questionnaires, where he indicates how he will get there, which project he is going to – for cleaning, construction or “Big Divnitstvo”, indicates his culinary preferences – whether he has allergies, whether he is a vegan or a vegetarian. Next, we divide people in the chat into teams – by color: crimson, emerald, cornflower, gold, and people enter themselves into the table. After that, we send safety guides, a list of things to bring and an approximate schedule.

Having arrived at the designated place, people board buses, each with its own coordinator. Next, a general gathering takes place at the location, people receive stickers with the color of their team, so when we say to them “Voloshkovi – to this object.” We also have at least one professional builder per facility and professional contractors.

We all get together only in the evening. Then we have a cultural program and dinner. A girl from our team is also responsible for food. She creates the menu, and then chat volunteers join her in the kitchen. By the way, at that toloka, where more than 400 people gathered, the participants realized how many there were only when we all met after work, because the teams worked in five different villages at the same time: in one there was a rave toloka, in others cleaning and construction.

Portrait of a Repair Together volunteer – what is he like?

We have a gathering of very different people who would never have met had it not been for Toloka. For example, a nuclear physicist and a film director. At the same time, it often happens that they have just met, but it is as if they have known each other for half their lives. It is difficult for me to paint a common portrait, but these are definitely free-thinking people, not blinded, open. We support both the LGBTQ community and Pride month, I lead the social project “Velike Divnytsto”, which raises the topic of xenophobia and sexism in our society, so a person who adheres to extremely conservative views will not stay with us. Also, sometimes participants came to us who felt very guilty that they were not at the front, and even after a working day at the construction site, they could not relax themselves and did not allow others to switch emotionally, even for a short time. This approach is not close to us either. Therefore, the main thing is that the values ​​of our organization and the participants coincide.

How do local residents react to your initiative?

In fact, it is very different. At first, they were mostly afraid of us – because some incomprehensible people come, wearing tattoos, with strange-colored hair, doing unknown things. Someone thought that we were representatives of a state institution or students who were forcibly sent here. Then we got to know each other and became friends. Local grandparents support us and feed us, and we recently even took our friend Nadia to Kyiv for her birthday.

In general, we found the greatest connection with children and the elderly. Among young people, the situation is ambiguous. There are those who help us. But there were also unpleasant incidents. For example, at one of the Toloka’s in the evening, a fight broke out between local boys due to the abuse of moonshine. We do not have a strict ban on alcohol, but there were no such cases among our volunteers, because for the most part everyone is aware of their consumption.

We also used to stay at a recreation center, and among the locals there were those who could loudly turn on music at three o’clock in the morning, at four in the morning, Russian-language music, and when we made remarks – they did not understand why we were interfering with their rest. I wanted to say: “we have come to help you rebuild the village”, but then I realized that they were not. Yes, this is their village, but somehow they do not identify with this space. Maybe it takes time, maybe something else, but we decided not to go to that base anymore. But the most important thing for us is the feedback from the people we directly help, and they are positive.

And at what moments do you feel the most return from the fact that you work?

Now we have a tradition in the construction industry: before warming the house, write wishes: either to the house itself, or to the people who will live here, or to the universe, whatever. When you do that, people just cry because of how touching it is, because you realize you’re becoming a part of history, if only for the person you built this house for. We build from aerated concrete blocks, they are more expensive, but also much more durable, so we hope that someday people who were born after the end of the war will live in them. Also, among us there are volunteers who came from more than ten countries – these are the USA, France, Romania, Lithuania, Ireland… And when they write, for example, “I am Owen from Ireland, I love this house” – it cannot but be touched. I guess that’s why we do all this. I don’t know how to call this emotion, but it is felt even if no one says anything.

How many houses have you already managed to restore and how many do you plan to restore this season?

We already have 32 houses renovated, more than 150 plots cleared and prepared for construction and 7 houses built. Now we are planning to launch the “INBUT” camp (International Construction Camp – ed.), where we plan to rebuild at least 9 houses, but not “turnkey”, but first of all – the boxes themselves: foundation, walls, ceiling, roof. Because if it is rebuilt before winter, before the cold weather, then the internal works can be done even later, and a person will be able to live there.

In fact, 20 houses could be built – but everything depends on how many teams will work in parallel: two or ten. If there are people willing to work, then suppliers are willing to provide materials.

Who helps Repair Together?

As I already said, many volunteers come to us from abroad, we are supported by international media, and this is a circle: there is attention, there is financial support, there is an opportunity to attract volunteers. And this is very important: because we have such a position – not to take donations from Ukrainians, because they can invest in defense and help the war wounded. And foreigners can help us, in particular, those who, because of their own beliefs, do not want to give money for weapons.

Last year we went to Germany, we received an award for rave talk, it was valuable for us as an opportunity to highlight the war in Ukraine and its consequences. Dima also gave a speech at a TED Talk in Brussels. International partners, in particular Polish ones, help us with funds and materials, the USAid fund covered the arrangement of our international camp and leisure facilities with a grant. Since we are supported by the European Parliament – in fact, we try to be very careful with politics, because none of us have political ambitions, but we really want to learn to cooperate fruitfully with other states and with our state bodies. For example, the head of the ODH – Ivanivska hromada helps us a lot in the localities, as a representative of the government, it can attract communal tractors, provide statistics on the victims, and voice any needs.

We don’t plan to become an organization of builders, but we are currently focusing on cleaning and construction, because we see that no one is filling this need the way it should be filled. If there is an organization that focuses on long-term housing reconstruction, or if the state takes up this issue, we can switch to other directions, but for now the problem with housing is the most acute of those that we can solve.

How does the project live in the off-season, when construction stops due to cold weather?

We took this winter to devote time to our organization. We did not organize events for volunteers, but our team of co-founders – me, Dima, Vika and Sasha – gathered every day. We found a mentor, a person who has experience in NGO strategizing, and worked on the strategy, mission: who we are, what we do, what our goals are, where we are going. Of the four of us, only Vika had experience working in the public sector, but not in managing an organization. So we studied the legislation and peculiarities of activity in this area.

This helped a lot because we had a lot of defocus in the beginning. We grabbed everything – cleaning, repairs, reconstruction, psychological support, cultural development, and the development of businesses affected by the war… We wanted to do all this, but we had no idea how appropriate it was, whether our resources would be enough – and of course, they were not enough. In the winter, we made a retrospective of the year – and realized that we are neither about reconstruction nor about cleaning. We are about the community of people, about the cultivation of volunteerism, about raising the civic position of people. Because by joining our events, people feel that a lot depends on them, not only here and now, but also in the country as a whole. And by solving one problem, you can solve anything if you do it together, with one goal, with one mission.

It is especially felt when you see how a team of 50 people in two days does as much as the inhabitants of this destroyed building would have done in the best case in two months. We plan to make some houses not from purchased aerated concrete blocks, but from bricks collected from the remains of destroyed buildings. Simply passing bricks to each other to the music in a chain, we collected the surviving bricks from the crushed gymnasium in Yagidny for three new houses.

HOW TO JOIN FROM UKRAINE OR ABROAD:

In Instagram Repair Together, there is a post in the bookmarks in English: “How to help a foreigner in the reconstruction of Ukraine.”

And there are three ways:

1. Donat.

2. Come and become a volunteer.

3. Spreading information about us, even just a repost.

Someone can choose one thing, someone – all three points, and it’s all a big help. For communication, you can write to the Repair Together chatbot.