ELSA Ukraine - instruction on how to succeed in the most challenging times

ELSA Ukraine shares the experience we gained in the past 8 months. We hope this article will bring you more insights from our work and you might better understand what challenges lie for NGOs in wartime, how to succeed in such a period and keep being strong and competitive.

ELSA Ukraine is a bunch of smart, creative, and kind students willing to reshape the world by bringing democratic principles to life and changing our country for the better. ELSA Ukraine members are active during and after their student life. They are Young European Ambassadors, ERASMUS exchange students, and MUN participants, they create new legal projects, such as podcasts, blogs, firms, legal tech start-ups, and pro bono projects. We are proud of every one of them as we hope, ELSA Ukraine had a significant impact on their personal growth.

 What has changed since the 24th of February? Let us tell you more.

 Wartime - how to survive

24th of February. 3 days before the new semester had to begin. Each of us stayed at home, planning life for the next week and preparing for our studies. The plans had changed. We were forced to live in a new reality.

On the first day, we contacted each other in Local Groups and checked if everything was right. We were hoping the war to stop in the coming days/weeks. We were wrong. In the next few days, we changed our strategy and came into action. Members of different Local Groups were sending requests to meet them at the railway station and/or host at home. Western regions of Ukraine became volunteering hubs. We were doing our best to connect people and support them as much as we could.

ELSA Ukraine also contacted other National Groups asking for support. One of the most inspiring stories is – the Lithuania journey of Alina Kravchuk and Alina Hetmanchuk. They were forced to move from Kharkiv due to the massive explosions and the President of ELSA Ukraine 2021/22, Adil Abduramanov, contacted ELSA Lithuania. Members of the National Group of ELSA Lithuania helped girls with accommodation, and even found a place for an internship with one of the best law firms in the Baltic region.

Our Local Groups in Kharkiv, Sumy, Dnipro, and Odesa suffered the most in the first months. These regions were and some of them remain desired targets of russia. Being on the front line of the war or close to it constantly threatens life. ELSA members were forced to leave the country or move to another region. As well, it influenced partners of Local Groups. ELSA Kharkiv lost their partner - a law firm, which no longer could support them financially. And it is now exceedingly difficult for them to build a network and find new partners.  

In such uncertain times, we had to be creative and remain strong to keep working and building strong relationships within the Network, partners, and more.

Strategy and innovative approaches

Building a strategy is the key to success that can save even in times of war. The National Board uses diverse ways to communicate and encourage students to cooperate.

●      Student orientation. We are now actively moving to a detailed study of data to predict the success of the planned activities. We study the age, names of universities, and areas of law that are of most interest to our audience. We collect data from students who have gone abroad to be able to cooperate with other National Groups to support them in their adaptation.

●      Feedback. We also actively analyze students' feedback and are open to their suggestions, as it contributes to better interaction with our target audience and builds trust in the organization.

●      Format of the event. We hold our events in an online format, but as far as the situation in the region allows in a particular period, we take risks and hold events in face-to-face and mixed formats. Live meetings are necessary for students. They help to train communication skills, and socialization helps to cope with stress.

●      Unification and coaching. This year we are actively unifying the Network. We are creating templates and examples to simplify the life of the local level Boards as much as possible to guide them in their project activities. We are sincere and frank with the Boards, share our experience with them and are always in touch.

●      Work with the media. We actively train Local Boards to work with the media to ensure that the level of dissemination of information about events is sufficient so that the number of participants is never less than 50 people, regardless of the level and format of the event. We train to write press and post-releases at the level of journalists, correctly define a narrow target audience and learn targeting and key rules of the successful introduction of social networks.

●      Understanding of behavioural design. We conduct workshops on behavioural design for Local Boards to help them better understand their behaviour, as well as to know the methods and ways to change people's behaviour to the desired one, or to predict the reaction of the target audience to a particular proposal.

●      Self-presentation and ability to sell membership. ELSA Ukraine is reviewing the options for presenting the Association to potential members to meet the expectations of students, as well as training them to understand sales techniques to adjust their presentation so that it is an attractive offer for students.

Expansion

This year, despite all the difficulties, the expansion is active. Since the beginning of our term, we have created 2 Initiative Groups in Lutsk and Ternopil, which have quickly joined the team and proven activity and thirst for active work. We also plan to continue our expansion during the year among universities that are interested in long-term cooperation with us.

Unfortunately, we have not only good news. ELSA Sumy will not be able to continue its functioning. At the beginning of the term, they had three members on the Board. Due to the war, one girl went abroad, and the rest lost their motivation due to the amount of work and the ineffectiveness of the activities. Unfortunately, the students from Sumy did not join the Network after the presentation and the Local Group will be expelled at the upcoming NCM.

We also lost ELSA Mariupol. During spring NCM in 2022, the Initiative Group stopped its existence. It was the second group after ELSA Donetsk, which we were forced to terminate until ‘better times’.

Legal English

Legal English is our active specialization this year. We try to help students from Ukraine to learn English to be able to communicate with European colleagues and easily exchange experiences to build Europe in Ukraine. Our goal is active European integration. Since the beginning of the year, we have had three projects on legal English.

●      Project 1: Legal English with Roberta Ward from California. Together with ELSA Iasi (Romania), we conduct a series of lectures for students with an American legal English teacher.

●      Project 2. Unfortunately, ELSA Potsdam could not join it, but we are conducting a student exchange between Ukrainian students and German students from Potsdam university.

●      Project 3. An exchange between Ukrainian students and students from Chicago. Still in the planning process.

If you are interested in training in legal English with us or have ideas about this, please contact ELSA Ukraine.

Internships

Imagine a student living in Ukraine. During studying, a siren alarm sounds. This sound itself is terrifying. The student must quickly get ready and go to the shelter. This happens several times a day. The student has regular blackouts to save electricity. The student must have time to cook and shower on a tight schedule. At this point, a siren alarm may also sound. At any time. The student must also wake up at night if the siren alarm sounds. This life is stressful. Constant stress.

What kind of quality education can we talk about if we need to survive in these conditions? But our state needs talented and intelligent specialists. We can get it through international internships. Therefore, this year we are trying to do everything possible to give our students a chance to discover their potential and become successful.

If your National Group is willing to help and aid in finding internships and supplying contacts, please contact ELSA Ukraine. We are incredibly grateful for your support, as well as everyone who will have a chance for better education and practical training in legal skills.

International cooperation

We cooperate with national and international organizations to support our members. Among them:

●      International Criminal Court. Materials for National Moot Court Competition on International Criminal Law.

●      Coalition for International Criminal Court. Project partner of NMCC on ICL

●      Cormack Consultancy Group. Twinning project. Informational partnership.

●      USAID. Informational, project partnership. Financial support by grants etc.

●      PILPG. Informational cooperation.

●      Cooperation with law firms and national NGOs.

So, this is our story. The story of ELSA Ukraine. We work against all odds. We thank those who support our activities. We are grateful to each National Group that expressed their position since February 24, and who helped and continues to help Ukrainians. We do not forget anything. And we believe that soon we will be able to invite all of you to an ICM or ITM in Ukraine.