A year of struggle, a year of indomitability

Today, February 24, marks a year since the beginning of the full-scale armed invasion of the Russian Federation into the territory of Ukraine.

A year of struggle. A year of indomitability and resistance to the enemy invasion, which united the entire Ukrainian people, demonstrated to the whole world our will to life, justice and victory.

Now every conscious Ukrainian is doing everything possible so that the ugly «second army of the world», led like a puppet by the vile Kremlin authorities, which is at war with the civilian population and civilian infrastructure, finally disappears from our flourishing, free Ukraine.

Helping our defenders and people affected by hostilities, volunteering – this is what has become the most important thing for us during this time. In the first days of the war, a Volunteer Headquarters was created at the university, which united active and caring students, employees and graduates in a desire to help.

Students and employees of the university actively joined the activities of numerous volunteer funds, groups and organizations both in our city and beyond, participated in the fortification of the city (making anti-tank hedgehogs, filling sandbags, etc.), weaving camouflage nets, sorting, packaging and providing humanitarian aid, working with internally displaced persons (meeting people in refugee reception centers, accompanying them during settlement, working with children).

Employees were involved in engineering work on the repair and restoration of military equipment. During the full-scale invasion, students and employees of the Noosphere Engineering School manufactured and handed over to the military a lot of useful equipment free of charge.

The primary trade union organization of students, postgraduates and doctoral students and the Association of ZNTU Alumni (ZDTU, MZMI) initiated the collection of charitable contributions for the needs of protection, defense and restoration. The charitable contributions received, together with the funds of the trade union, are spent on the purchase of military ammunition, medicines and other vital items for the heroes who defend our country.

On the initiative of the Department of Physical Materials Science and with the assistance of the student community, the university is collecting materials for trench candles and manufacturing them for further transfer to the military. Shelters and inviolability points are being set up directly at the university with our own funds and with the assistance of charitable foundations, because above all else, the safety of our people is paramount.

With the participation of the campus staff, the Volunteer Headquarters continues to accommodate in the dormitories of Zaporizhzhia Polytechnic people who were forced to evacuate from temporarily occupied territories and zones of active hostilities. During the entire period of the full-scale war, more than 2,000 people (of whom almost 400 were children) from the occupied districts of Zaporizhzhia region found temporary shelter in the university dormitories: Vasylivka, Orikhivka, Hulyaipil, Melitopol, Berdyansk, Polohivka districts, as well as Kherson, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions.

Charitable foundations and international volunteer organizations help us take care of their primary needs. Someone chooses a university dormitory as a permanent (for the period of war) place of residence, someone, after a certain time, moves on. But in any case, no matter how long the IDPs stay with us, we provide each of them with basic necessities, food kits, clothes, bedding, and help with household arrangements. In addition, students remain in the dormitories whose parents are in the occupied territories and are unable to help their children.

Work is ongoing to create comfortable living conditions for internally displaced persons. Thanks to the involvement of grant and donor funds from all-Ukrainian and international organizations, repairs are being carried out in the university’s dormitories and the arrangement of rooms for IDPs and common areas continues.

At the joint initiative of the Charity Fund «Posmishka UA», the Volunteer Headquarters of the Zaporizhzhia Polytechnic National University, students, full-time employees of the dormitories and parents of displaced persons, creative meetings are held for children of internally displaced persons living in student dormitories of our university. Cooperation with charitable foundations and organizations covers the primary needs of children, and also makes it possible to organize useful and meaningful leisure for them: attending performances at the Zaporizhzhia Academic Regional Puppet Theater, New Year’s events at the Metallurgists’ Palace of Culture.

The volunteer movement at Zaporizhzhia Polytechnic University was given significant momentum by cooperation with the Zaporizhzhia Regional Branch of the Union of People with Disabilities «USI». The students of our university participated in the creation of a joint large-scale socio-educational project «USI Together», within the framework of which student volunteers conducted classes in English and German, physical education, history, choreography for children who were forced to leave their homes during the war, and held entertaining animation events for them.

An extremely important part of our work is taking care of our students and employees. In August, a 20-ton humanitarian cargo was delivered to the university and the distribution of food kits to those students who need it began. This was made possible thanks to the help of the Volyn Regional Charitable Foundation «Kovcheg». Food kits have already been received by more than 500 students, and humanitarian aid continues to be provided, because every day more and more people need support and assistance. The distribution of food kits to employees has also been organized on several occasions.

At the initiative of the university, the Department of Education and Science of the Zaporizhzhia Regional State Administration and the Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration, a hub was created on the basis of the Zaporizhzhia Polytechnic for educators from Vasylivka and Melitopol districts. In these difficult times, we all understand the importance of creating continuous, safe and accessible education, so today we must do everything possible to ensure that every little Ukrainian has access to knowledge.

Today we bow our heads and thank the defenders of Ukraine, those who have been holding the sky for us for a year, covering us from bullets and giving us the opportunity to live and work for our victory!

With Ukraine in our hearts!