Iryna Drobovych: Russian propaganda is part of the war that Russia is waging against us, so we must oppose this propaganda in our daily activities.

Recently, a group of Ukrainian women leaders visited Kosovo as part of the project “TRENDS IN THE FIELD OF WOMEN, PEACE AND SECURITY: THE CASE OF THE WESTERN BALKANS AND UKRAINE”.

This project aims to support women's meaningful participation in post-conflict processes in Ukraine, through networking, education and exchange of experiences with women's movements in countries that have overcome serious security challenges and are on the path to post-conflict recovery.

The co-founder and executive director of the Day After Foundation, Iryna Drobovych, who is also an expert in gender policy, women's empowerment, and political participation, spoke in an interview with The Geopost about the experiences that Ukraine can learn from Kosovo in the post-war period.

Read the full interview here:

The Geolocation: Good afternoon, Ms. Irina. We look forward to welcoming you to Pristina. Please tell us something about your organization.

Drobovych: Hello. Our organization is called “The Day After Foundation.” We prepare Ukrainian women for the post-war order.

We do not support peace at all costs, but we believe that it is never too early to prepare for peace. And we are currently organizing study tours for Ukrainian women leaders to countries that have experienced war or major unrest. We are currently on one such trip to the Balkans.

We have just returned from Bosnia and Herzegovina, where we visited Sarajevo, the Tuzla region and Srebrenica. These days we are in Pristina to study the post-war experience in Kosovo. We are a delegation of eight female leaders representing different organizations with diverse expertise – from women’s political participation and women’s peacebuilding to mental health, war crimes documentation and community work in different regions of Ukraine.

The experiences in Kosovo are interesting and important for us, especially in terms of supporting people who have experienced violence during the war and sexual violence. How can you work with such an impressive group, how can you help these people survive the terrible experiences they have had in their lives. And how can we make this support sustainable.

These are the topics we have explored here. And we will bring this experience and knowledge back to Ukraine. Unfortunately, we really need this knowledge now to help vulnerable groups in our country.

The Geolocation: And who did you meet, what did you see, what did you learn in Kosovo?

Drobovych: Our partner during this visit is the Kosovo Center for Gender Studies, editor’s note. Ed. We had a number of meetings with them and learned about their research and work in supporting the women’s movement and women’s leadership here in Kosovo. We met with a center that cares for people tortured during the war and with a center that provides them with psychological and legal support (KRCT – Kosovo Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture, editor’s note).

We also met with the former President of Kosovo, Atifete Jahjaga, who is an example of political leadership and support for this post-war society. We also visited the reporting center and it was an interesting experience for us to see how important it is to document crimes against humanity, how important it is to preserve all the information about war crimes that occur during such major unrest. This is our program.

The Geolocation: How will your experiences in Kosovo help you in your work in Ukraine?

Drobovych: I'm continuing with what I haven't actually finished yet. What's interesting here are the experiences with documenting war crimes. The methodology for recording and preserving information about human rights violations that occur during war is something we will also need.

The National Mechanism for Assistance to Victims of War Violence is also an example that may be of interest to us, since here the system is being built at different levels, from government policies to the effective involvement of civil society in this process. And it is also interesting to return to the experience of Reporting House, to the role of the media during the war, the role of narratives during the war, how we tell our story, our Ukrainian story, how we live the war, how we tell it to ourselves and how we can tell it to the world. We will take this knowledge home with us and apply it in our other activities, especially in the workshops that our foundation organizes for Ukrainian women leaders.

Our next workshop will take place in the summer and we will share this knowledge with those who will join our foundation community.

The Geopost: Have you encountered any influence of Russian propaganda or narratives in your work?

Drobovych: Russian propaganda is part of the war that Russia is waging against us. Therefore, we must counter this propaganda in our daily work by telling the truth about our war and the stories of Ukrainian women who are staying in Ukraine and helping Ukraine from different parts of the world. In this way, we shape and tell this story and counteract the propaganda.

The Geopost: Kosovo is currently not recognized by Ukraine. Do you think it is possible for this to happen, and what role do you as an organization play in this process? Ukrainians are visiting the Balkan countries. Are these the first steps towards cooperation between our two countries?

Drobovych: We are representatives of civil society and it is extremely important for us to create interpersonal, people-to-people contacts, and this is actually our role, and it is this knowledge through interpersonal contacts and civil society interaction that we will continue to build and bring to Ukraine.

/ The Geopost