Roman’s project in Finland – Renewing the concept of Ukrainian Community Center

While being a volunteer of the European Solidarity Corps in Helsinki, Roman put in place his own initiative of solidarity.  He conducted a survey to gather feedback on the services of his hosting organization : the Ukrainian Community Center.

” The Ukrainian Community Center started its operations in 2022, when it was needed the most and has been continuing its operations until today. However, the times are constantly changing, and the needs of the community are changing as well. The Community Center needed somehow to make these changes in a way, that will capture new needs of community it is meant to serve. As a first step to these changes, I developed an online community survey through Google Forms for 2 target audiences -people, who are using the community center and those, who don’t. I analyzed the gathered data and provided insight into what could be done to update the community center to better fulfill the needs of the community. After that, I presented the results to the Ukrainian Association in Finland representatives, which are managing the Ukrainian Community Centerto further process my findings and implement changes that are needed.

We reached to the Ukrainian community members and listened to their needs and proposals for their own community center. Also, it was suggested to conduct similar surveys more often, thus, making the adaptation process more constant.

The project was able to deliver data-driven based solutions to the Ukrainian community center operations. With times changing and needs of Ukrainian community changing rapidly as well, it is important to be able to satisfy those needs as much as possible. The Ukrainian Community Center was able to make a plan on how to implement those suggestions by the community and to move forward with a way to help the community more.

The survey was published on a relatively big facebook page, as well as printed materials were put in the Community Center and other relevant locations. I also had an opportunity to present the results of the survey directly to the decision-makers at the Community Center and answer their questions.

I greatly improved my social research skills by creating a survey, which would gather necessary information for the following analysis, consulting with the specialists in the sociology field and using best practices in the area. Also, my data analytics skills were improved by processing a significant amount of data into insight, that could be shared in a visually simple form. I have also developed my time management skills by being slightly constrained in time with my project conclusion.

I am grateful to know that the Ukrainian Community Center is committed to making its services even better and more accessible for everyone. I thank everyone involved in this project and hope that the results would bring positive change.“

This initiative was supported along the CLIC project. C.L.I.C. for “Coordinating Locally in order to Increase More Changes with  the European solidarity Corps” is a cooperation partnership we participate  in with 9 other like-minded organisations from 9 European countries. Together, we want to increase the impact and the visibility of the European  Solidarity Corps in our communities, while providing young people with a  strong educational value along their volunteering projects.