– You know, I have a garden, but I may not look after it. My wife wouldn’t let me. I’m here now, but my head and heart are there – his hand pointing to somewhere else.
– Maybe try something different, something that you’d really love? Just give it a shot…
– Oh, I don’t know…
This conversation took place in Nedoboivtsi, Chernivtsi Oblast. It was a beautiful summer day. Global Communities was having an information sharing session about grant and technical support of its PEARL project.
After the session, the organizers were approached by a middle-aged man with so much pain in his eyes. Nothing but pain and sorrow were in those eyes…
Later, the head of the village said that the man’s name was Yurii Zhuk. In 2015, Beetle-Bud, his construction company, helped build defensive lines in Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts.
Then in 2022, he volunteered to join the army and defend the country from the invaders. After recovering from a serious concussion that he had received while fighting, Yurii had to be released from military service for health reasons. Yet he still felt guilty as he was leaving his brothers-in-arms.
…Yurii submitted a grant proposal and received support from Global Communities. He needed help setting up a refrigerator room and a fruit dryer: he already had a suitable place for it as well as a boiler, part of the works had also been completed. Yurii used the grant funds to purchase construction materials, while paying for the work with his personal money. There was a lot of work to do, and in so little time, so he was completely absorbed by it, and it helped take his mind away. The eyes, however, remained just as sad, while the mind was somewhere far away – something you could see on the outside…
At last, a smile appeared on Yurii’s stern face as he was in Lviv meeting other grantees at a training from the PEARL project, telling them about himself and his business. There, he was among very different people sharing their stories: some left the occupied territory with all their life in just a suitcase; some lost their business to shelling and were now restoring it, others were just getting started. And there were veterans, like Yurii, who, having been wounded, returned home and went back to building their lives – and who were sharing about it. Maybe, at that moment, something changed in Yurii’s soul. His life started a new chapter.
Grants are not always just about the funding. It is about warm conversations with people, it is about being humane, about moral support.
Sometimes, a smile on a veteran’s face, like in this story, is more precious than any business or money. Because it is about a life that has been restored.