On February 24, 2023 thousands of Ukrainians currently living in the Netherlands will gather at the Koninklijke Jaarbeurs (Utrecht, Netherlands) for the memorial event of the war in their home country. A year ago on this day, Russian troops invaded Ukraine.

Ukrainians, as well as Dutch and other locals of different nationalities supporting Ukraine, will follow the Walk of Hope - a walking route from Utrecht Central Station to the Ukrainian crisis center in Jaarbeurs, a route taken by thousands of Ukrainian refugees who arrived in the Netherlands last year. 

A further agenda of the memorial day includes many events. Under the motto "Let's remember together" meetings, commemoration, conversations about the past, the now and the future will be taking place. The connection is a central topic. Not only among the refugees from Ukraine, but also among the countless Dutch people who supported them with their warm hearts over the past year. This includes members of host families, volunteers, humanitarian workers, and employees of various aid agencies and governments. The memorial event is also facilitated by Utrecht Regional Safety Services, the Ministry of Justice and Security and the Municipality of Utrecht.

A huge map of Ukraine with 25 areas representing all Ukrainian regions and cities will be placed in the meeting hall. A symbolic walk 'through Ukraine” includes music programs, exhibitions and video-content based on stories and representing the talents of Ukrainians coming from different regions of Ukraine. Each region will have its own memorial complex where refugees from this area can meet and children will be able to make a drawing, which will be sent to the corresponding place in Ukraine.

The symbol of the event is a sunflower with 25 seeds in the middle. The sunflower is the national flower of Ukraine and represents resilience and the return home. At the core, you see 25 blue dots that represent all regions and therefore Ukraine as an indivisible country. Then you see 24 yellow dots and two rings. There are 20 points in the first ring, 22 in the second. All together this makes 24-02-2022.

This nationwide memorial assembly is an initiative of the Vitalnya Foundation - a cultural and community center for Ukrainian refugees in Utrecht (“vital’nya” is literally a “living room” in Ukrainian language). Since the 1st of April 2022 this is a place for daily activities for Ukrainians such as language lessons, mental health meetings, festivities, counseling hours and child care.

MasterPeace is proud to partner with Vitalnya on events where we can together contribute to a more peaceful future. MasterPeace mission is in mobilizing, inspiring and connecting talents for a sustainable future with less conflict. We use the soft power of art, music, play and sport to help the transformation in the world.

The Ukrainian community in Utrecht contributed greatly with their talents to the Sky Concerts organized by MasterPeace on the International Day of Peace on the 21 of September 2022. On that day we - together with over 200 stages all around the world - gathered to express our deepest wish for peace in Ukraine and everywhere in the world where people suffer from armed conflicts. We listened to some great Ukrainian talents singing and playing musical instruments, watched young children dancing in national costumes, we heard amazing and breathtaking stories and prayed and hoped for peace soon.                 

The youngsters from Utrecht Ukrainian community joined special events organized by MasterPeace in frames of Utrecht-900 to influence the creation of the city for everyone - the city with no walls and full of talents. There were multiple opportunities to show their talent in creating graffiti, practicing writing a rap song addressing social issues and simply getting together, having good meaningful time and finding friends among Dutch youngsters.

In contribution to the memorial day on the 24th of February MasterPeace will mobilize its network and MasterPeace clubs in Ukraine that are working day and night helping the society to stand together and resist Russian aggression.

In the Netherlands, a great young artist Yarima Lugo, the member of the MasterPeace Core Team, will create a musical composition for the Remember Together event to accompany the heartbeat symbolical action showing solidarity with the people in Ukraine and other Ukrainians everywhere in the world where the war brought them.

“Thinking about this moment together gives us hope and courage during this difficult time” says Anna Bieliaeva. Anna is from Kharkiv, Ukraine. On March 11, 2022 her mother, her 4 year old son and she arrived at Utrecht Central. She became a volunteer at the Ukrainian Crisis Center and later a location manager at Vitalnya Foundation. You can read Anna’s story in the Netherlands. Anna is an inspirator and the engine behind the Remember Together memorial event. 

Many MasterPeace clubs are operating in the countries where political unrest or armed conflicts are a part of sad reality. They share this burden with Ukrainian people in their hearts. They also are willing to help Ukrainians to keep their spirits up by sharing their learnings on how to resist and stay strong, how to have dialogue about tragic events and how to build the future without aggression.  

On the 24th of February we will look back and Remember Together. But we will also look forward. We will imagine the future where we all live in peace. Together.

Read more about the event “Remember Together” and support Vitalnya to hold an event with bigger impact by donating, sharing, and reposting information on www.24lyutoho.nl 

Odisha, despite being the seventh largest producer with highest per capita consumption of vegetables in India and Daspalla being called as Vegetables Hub of Odisha have been lacking on infrastructure for scientific storage of surplus production of vegetables leading to all most 40% food waste. Despite bumper production of vegetables in Daspalla Tribal Block of Odisha, India, Farmers used to suffer due to inadequate infrastructure like Cold Storage and Marketing support.

Keeping the above points in mind, Jeevan Rekha Parishdad (MasterPeace India-Odisha) with the support of Jeevika Trust and Brunel University, UK and Technical Support of DMCL,UK piloted a Smart Farming Solution project which has addressed by establishing a 10 MT solar Cold Storage benefitting 12000 smallholder farmers from 15 vegetable producing villages and through Market Linkage support called Daspalla Fresh- A Producers to Consumers (P2C) Initiative. Cold storage units can go a long way in cutting down losses suffered by the traders and farmers, as demonstrated by the 10 MT metric tons cold storage unit running in Odasara village. All its operations have been digitalized through a mobile application.

"After having implemented the Cooling as a Service Initiative through which we supported the implementation of the pay-per-use business model in the cooling sector, we saw a strong potential to tailor the model to the agricultural cold chain. One of the project's aims is to shift the burden of investment and operation of cold rooms onto the technology providers, so that farmers can benefit from cooling while only paying nominal amounts per use," said Dr.Manu, the Director,JRP and  and the Implementing partner of Jeevika Trust.

The cold room in Odasara village is run by the local Farmers Producers Group on a subscription model. At present, 125 small-time traders/farmers are using this facility. Firstly, one has to avail a membership card for Rs 100/ to use the facility following which farmers only have to pay for the number of crates they store.

Farmers now have a way out of distress selling. The migration of farmers has been reduced in these 15 villages. The farmers have been trained on organic vegetable cultivation. Some farmers have been supported to start Green House Vegetable cultivation which has increased the morals of farmers to cultivate vegetable throughout the year. The availability of cold rooms, which allows farmers to hold on to the stock, and strengthens their bargaining power against middlemen, have been pushing them to cultivate horticultural crops. The cold room is being operated by Women Self-Help Group (SHG), where the women not only manage the rooms and bookkeeping, but also help with forward market linkage of the stored products. The crops stored in the rooms are collected in bulk from different farmers to be sold to retail shops and hotels. This method ensures that the farmers receive fair rates for their produce. As a wholly women-run room, it gives women an opportunity for skill development, and to financially support their families.

From the data gathered from the Farmers
Producers Group and SHG, it has been revealed that the income level of farmers
has increased to more than double. For an example during June- July 2022, they
received 10 times more income by keeping tomato in cold storage for one month
when the tomato price was Rs.2/ per kg. They sold the tomato for Rs. 40 to
Rs.50/per kg during rainy season in July- August 2022. One trader kept 100
kg/20 carets tomato in the cold storage for one month and paid Rs. 1000/ to the
Farmer Producer Group managing the cold storage which was an additional income
to the Group.

In this way, JRP and MasterPeace India is constantly working to develop
projects which combine environment and empowerment in the region of Odisha with
an aim to uplift socio-economic status of whole community.

MasterPeace club in Malawi is coordinated under Sustainable Rural Community Development Organisation in Malawi. Our vision is a country, where rural communities are self-sustained, where the population is healthy and fully empowered, and where all people are equal, know their rights and take their own development initiatives and, our vision is to improve the livelihoods of rural communities by generating economic, agricultural, educational and cultural empowerment, and by promoting health and gender equality through the mobilisation, training, education and entertainment of all women, men and children.

  The organization has long worked together with MasterPeace Global as a licensed club in Malawi where we are implementing initiatives which we are aiming at promoting peace in Malawi to subscribe to the global vision of MasterPeace. With this we are implementing sport for peace initiatives which is aiming at filling the gender gap existing in Malawian Society. During this year MasterPeace Malawi partnered with Chikwawa Queens Football Club, our partnership is based on bridging the gender gaps existing in Malawi, by setting a unique dimension between women and men, girls and boys.

All along, Malawian Society believed that Football is the game for men only, however our partnership with Chikwawa Queens football is aiming at turning upside down the thinking of the people in Malawi to prove that there are no differences between males and females when it comes to roles and responsibilities.

Utrecht youth deploy talents for their city without walls

Utrecht’s 900th birthday is festively celebrated. All of us from MasterPeace are also celebrating. MasterPeace was founded and based in Utrecht and we can't pass up the opportunity to honor this beautiful city.

In the period from June 2 to November 11, 2022, we organized creative boot camps for youngsters between 15 and 19 years old, with the theme; “city without walls, full of talent”. The goals of the boot camps were to create perspective for the young people and to stimulate social cohesion and active citizenship.

The youngsters have discovered their talents and immediately put them to use for an even better, more inclusive and sustainable city. The boot camps were held with 145 youngsters from different neighborhoods in Utrecht. We worked with two third-year MAVO classes from Gerrit Rietveld College, VWO5 students from St. Bonifatius College and youngsters from the Leidsche Rijn and Vleuten-de Meern districts at Azotod.

The boot camp program consisted of a graffiti workshop, rap workshop, devising neighborhood actions and advising the mayor. The ideas of Kate Raworth's Donut Economy, where the values; take good care of yourself, take good care of others and take good care of your surroundings, being the central theme of our program.

Walls of Connection - three graffiti murals

When we heard about the theme of the celebration "city without walls", we immediately thought of our "Walls of Connection". A project in which we transform walls, which are intended to separate people from each other, into walls of connection by bringing together different youngsters from the city to visualize their dreams about Utrecht as an inclusive sustainable city. The youngsters had graffiti workshops given by professional graffiti artists in which they made visualizations of Utrecht as a city without walls.

Following the visualizations of the youngsters, the artists started making a design for an actual mural. For example, Robert Brink (De Verfdokter) made a design of the creations of the students of the Gerrit Rietveld College for a mural at ‘Toekomstpunt’ on Voortrekkers Dreef. He also designed a mural for Azotod based on the input of young people from the Leidsche Rijn and Vleuten-de Meern districts. Munir de Vries has made a design based on the visualizations of the students of the St. Bonifatius College. See the results below. At all three locations, the youngsters helped the artists with the actual spraying of the wall.

On Wednesday the 14th of  December we officially opened the 'Wall of Connection' at Muziekpodium Azotod. A great moment to look back on the project together with the youngsters from DURF!, Azotod, the Verfdokter and other partners. 'U in de wijk' were also there to capture the moment. Watch their video here.

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‘City Without Walls’ rap

In addition to the beautiful Walls of Connections, the youngsters from the different neighborhoods have converted their ideas about their city without walls into a rap. They did this during the rap workshop led by rapper Jermain Bridgewater. Each group of youngsters has written a verse of the rap. Jermain started in June at Gerrit Rietveld College, where the students chose the beat of the rap and wrote the first verse together. The students found it very exciting and a bit scary,  but overcame their fear and even recorded their lyrics themselves in the recording studio at BOKS in Overvecht.

In October, the youngsters at Azotod and the students of the St. Bonifatius College wrote the second and third verse. They also went into the studio to record the rap. The rap is not only in Dutch, but also contains lyrics in Ukrainian, specially sung by a Ukrainian refugee.

The youngsters rap about their 'city without a wall, with more than one culture' as a place where everyone is welcome and can feel at home. They also see Utrecht as a city where people are connected; “Old walls, young people. connected in this large village without borders', and where we work together towards a sustainable, beautiful and inclusive future; ‘one for all and all for one in Utrecht, Utrecht has room for everyone, that is Utrecht’. 

Listen here to the rap on soundcloud here.

On Friday 11 November, the celebration of Utrecht 900 Years was festively concluded. The Sint Maarten parade ended in the Moreelsepark, where Jermain was ready to give a spectacular performance. Jermain and I were given the honor of presenting the 'City Without Walls' rap. Dmitri from Ukraine was also on stage to rap his lyrics live for a very large audience. The rap was well received and the audience sang along enthusiastically.

Neighborhood actions and advice for the mayor

Finally, in addition to their creative excesses during the graffiti and rap workshops, the youngsters have also shown that they are active citizens. They came up with cool neighborhood campaigns and, in response to a personal video message from mayor Sharon Dijksma, they gave advice to the mayor. Her question to the youngsters was; how do we turn Utrecht into a “masterpiece”?

After a short introduction to Kate Raworth's Donut Economics and playing our "Boiling Frog Game" that challenges young people to think about topics that affect our sense of freedom, it was time to brainstorm. Ideas for actions soon followed, such as helping out a shelter for Ukrainian refugees, collecting food for the food bank and promoting Keti Koti. These actions were actually carried out by the youngsters as part of their social internship.

In addition, letters were written and video messages were recorded to be sent to the mayor. The recommendations ranged from more free events for young people aged 16 and over to tackle loneliness among youngsters, to making public transport cheaper and introducing higher environmental taxes to combat climate change. To top it all off, a poem was written about how the problem of litter could be solved.

We look back on a successful project. The Utrecht youth can be proud of how they have expressed their visions about their city without walls in various creative ways and have made their voices heard for an even better, more inclusive and more sustainable Utrecht. In other words, Utrecht as a “masterpiece”.

Watch the aftermovie of this project here.

This project has been made possible by: