A meeting of the 1325-Zakarpattia Coalition was held in Uzhhorod with the participation of Kateryna Levchenko, Government Commissioner for Gender Policy, and Olesia Bondar, Director of the Ukrainian Women’s Fund, and Yevheniia Melesh, lawyer of the Medical Aid Committee in Zakarpattya, as the organization is a member of the Coalition.

Coalition members shared implemented projects to implement local action plans and talked about successful cases. During the discussion of local action plans for the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, Yevheniia Melesh spoke about the relevant areas of the CAMZ activities.

«In our work, we always try to communicate with the authorities and local self-government bodies, strengthening their effectiveness in implementing positive transformations, including in the field of security policy, emphasizing the important role of women in conflict prevention and resolution and peace building. We have successful cases of cooperation with the Tyachiv city community, where the Committee has set up a shelter for IDPs, and the local authorities are responsible for its further administration. A similar shelter operates in Nyzhnye Selyshche in Khust district, where it is taken care of by a local NGO, and the Committee’s volunteers provide organizational support for the functioning of a temporary accommodation facility for mothers with children in Uzhhorod. And this is only a part of our activities», the lawyer said.

Yevheniia Melesh added that support for women and motherhood is an important component of the year-long project "Improving the Protection of Children in Emergencies in Ukraine by Providing Safe Shelters, Food and Non-Food Items, and Psychosocial Support", which the Committee is implementing with the support of "terre des hommes Deutschland e.V." and funding from the German Federal Foreign Office. This includes humanitarian support for the population, especially for vulnerable groups, psychosocial support for citizens, and material and technical support for medical institutions, so that patients can receive quality services in public hospitals for free instead of spending significant amounts of money in private medical centers. It is worth noting here the arrangement of women’s health rooms with modern equipment and repairs in two antenatal clinics in Uzhhorod. In the context of psychosocial support for children, CAMZ has been fruitfully cooperating with the NGO "Happy Children" for a long time, as a result of which several hundred minors in Zakarpattia received professional support in 2023-2024.

«Some activities were not even planned by us as part of the Regional Action Plan 1325 for the period up to 2025 in Zakarpattia Oblast, but having received the necessary opportunities, we could not but use them. Medical Aid Committee in Zakarpattya continues to cooperate with partner organizations, primarily foreign ones, guided by the common principles of tolerance, gender equality and the priority of peace», summarized Yevheniia Melesh.

In her turn, Kateryna Levchenko thanked the regional members of the Coalition for their work and shared her vision of the association’s further growth and development.