Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine has affected almost all Ukrainian women and men, but not equally. For Roma women, it has become a multiple crisis: in addition to chronic social inequality, marginalization, and daily stigmatization, there have been challenges of displacement, loss of housing, lack of access to medicine, education, and basic services. In a situation where the state often remains silent or acts selectively, and discrimination within communities has only intensified, Romani women have once again proven vulnerable – and at the same time extremely strong.
Despite everything, Roma women today are becoming the face of change. They are not only fighting for a place for themselves, but also creating it for others. In the challenging conditions of war and multi-level discrimination, they organize humanitarian aid, support communities, engage in dialogue with the authorities, and fight for the right to be visible, heard, and influential. Their actions are not just a reaction to the crisis, but feminist, inclusive initiatives that shape a new social reality.
The NGO Ukrainian Feminist Network for Freedom and Democracy spoke with representatives of three such initiatives — the Center for Social Transformations TENET, the Kherson City Society of Young Roma, and Freefilmers. Each of them has its own challenges, victories, and voices. Yet together, they deliver a common message: Roma women are not standing aside. They are at the center of resistance, care, and the future.
TENET Center for Social Transformations: Changing the Role of Roma Girls in the Country
In a society where Roma girls are often perceived through the prism of stereotypes and prejudices, being yourself is an act of courage, and being a leader in such conditions is a whole revolution. For many young Roma women, the path to visibility begins with a wall of silence: they are frequently not heard in schools or universities, ignored in the media, and devalued even within their own communities. But it is here, at the intersection of age, ethnicity, gender, and social status, that a new feminism is being born – one that grows out of the experience of invisibility and transforms it into a source of strength.
TENET is one of those organizations that sees potential in those who have been taught by society to be ashamed of their identity. The center works not just to talk about equality, but to create it. Its activities are aimed at supporting Roma girls who face double discrimination: from the outside, through xenophobia and sexism, from the inside, through traditional ideas about the role of women in the community. All of this limits access to education, self-realization, and decision-making.
In response to these challenges, TENET has developed an initiative aimed at equipping young Roma girls with tools to change their own circumstances. It is not only about training and mentorship, but about creating a space where girls can feel heard, strong, and confident. The project focuses on developing civic engagement, media literacy, and skills to resist discrimination. Participants do not just learn how society works — they learn how to change it, how to speak for themselves publicly, and how to create content that breaks stereotypes.
The program offers several levels of support: from basic knowledge to individual mentorship, from developing personal “roadmaps” to publishing materials on an information platform.
The results are both visible and inspiring. Fifteen girls took part in the training, where they discussed participation, discrimination, and self-confidence. Ten of them reached the final stage, recording their own videos and writing texts. Yet numbers are only the surface. The most important result is the realization that they have the right to a voice, to choice, and to influence.
“This was one of the first projects that our organization’s team implemented in this format. And, definitely, it started the formation of our community. After the initiative was completed, the participants took part in our and partner events. Yesterday I returned from another event, where several of our graduates were also present. I was very impressed by the dynamic changes. You can follow step by step how each of them is becoming a step higher,” shared the founder and head of the TENET organization, Tatyana Storozhko.
She recalled that at the beginning of the project, participants often felt insecure, afraid to speak up, ask questions, or make suggestions. Gradually, however, this shyness faded. The girls began to speak more openly about their thoughts, volunteered to give interviews, and explored new topics with interest. Some had their first experiences of public speaking or started running their social media with renewed strength and knowledge.
One of the core values of the TENET team is to create a safe environment – a space of acceptance, where you can try, make mistakes, try again, and gain experience without fear of judgment.
Particularly moving for Tatyana was the recording of an interview with one of the graduates, whom she met precisely within the framework of this project. During the conversation, the girl’s full personal story was heard for the first time. It was a story about the difficulties, losses, and challenges of the war, which began back in 2014 and intensified after the full-scale invasion.
“I was extremely impressed by how many difficulties, obstacles, and trials she had to go through. And at the same time, I am very happy that we became one of the steps for her, which helped in her transformations, realization of potential and growth,” added the founder of the organization.
It is these stories, in her opinion, that give strength to continue – even when it seems that everything is too difficult.
Thus, this is not just an educational course, but a profound transformation of the role of Roma girls in public life. They are no longer silent: they are gaining the knowledge they need, shaping discourse, and becoming influential voices in the struggle for equality.
Kherson City Society of Young Roma: A Space of Care, Strength, and Recovery
For many Roma girls and women, leadership is about resilience, not about public appearances or honorary titles. It is about the ability not to break under the pressure of prejudice, not to lose yourself amidst constant criticism – outside and inside the community. During the war, this pressure intensified. Loss of home, devaluation, social isolation, traumatic experiences – all this accumulates, germinates in the body with anxiety and exhaustion. In order to continue fighting for others, these women must first take care of themselves.
The Kherson City Society of Young Roma creates a safe space for this. A space where leaders — Roma girls and women can, perhaps for the first time, allow themselves to be truly vulnerable, receive psychological support without having to prove their strength every day. The organization implemented an initiative aimed at restoring their psycho-emotional state, supporting basic needs, and developing self-help tools, the kind that remained with the participants even after the project ended.
The program focused on mentorship, individual action plans, and trauma work. Project participants created online guides on psychological self-help, tailored to the context of Roma communities. This knowledge, drawn from personal experience, rooted in the realities of their lives, and conveyed with empathy, is what makes it effective.
The prepared guides and audio materials were distributed in communities: participants passed them on to other Roma women, published them in Viber and Telegram groups, and used them during local meetings.
As noted by Vira Drangoy, a lawyer and representative of the Kherson City Society of Young Roma, for many Roma girls, this was their first experience of being in a safe space where their emotions were not devalued, but rather understood and supported.
“Psychological sessions helped to talk about experiences related to war, loss of home, discrimination, and anxiety. The participants noted that for the first time they were able to truly look into their inner state and receive support without fear of judgment,” she emphasized.
In total, ten girls were able to stabilize their emotional state. The materials on psychological self-help created by the participants reached over 500 people in Roma communities. Simple, understandable tools were provided, those that help them to support themselves in difficult times and last for a long time.
And behind each number is a girl or woman who finds herself again. Who, having received support, is ready to become support for others.
According to Vira’s observations, the girls eventually began to speak openly about their emotional state. The topics of anxiety, apathy, burnout, and loneliness stopped being taboo and instead became the basis for open dialogue. This already signals a shift in the culture of silence within the community.
“For example, Zina from Odessa held a short conversation with girls in her community about mental health, using materials created within the initiative. She shared that after participating in the project, she felt confident in herself and ready to “be a voice” for others,” the human rights activist summarized.
In this project, psychological health is not a privilege, but a basic condition for active participation in community life, because women cannot change the world when they are forced to fight every day. Particularly, initiatives like this give them the right not only to survive, but also to live with dignity.
Freefilmers: Cinema as Action, Care as Political Strategy
At a time when humanitarian aid is often reduced to food parcels and material support, Freefilmers stand out as a collective of filmmakers who, since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, have acted as a volunteer community organization. Through solidarity screenings, they raise funds to support their volunteer activities. Their approach is to provide not just a “donation,” but assistance that works in the long term: technical equipment for children’s and adults’ education, support for earning income, legal and medical aid, and restoring documents.
Freefilmers are open about their mission: they do not simply document “real life”, they actively engage in it. From the very first days of working with communities, they listened, offered support, and looked for practical solutions. But experience showed that volunteering alone is not enough when it comes to daily survival in a system where Roma women face triple discrimination, because of ethnicity, gender, and poverty.
Within their initiative, they carried out three key areas of work. The first was restoring documents and providing legal support.
“Many families lost their documents when leaving the occupation, or never had them. The situation was especially difficult for illiterate women, who could not independently apply for the help they had a right to receive,” said the participant of the initiative, director Yulia Appen.
In one case, a woman with IDP status was denied support as a single mother of many children, even though she had just given birth to her ninth child. Her story was not an exception, but rather the result of systemic neglect.
“They don’t care about illiterate or Roma women in the state institutions. I was a witness to the negative attitude towards them,” the activist noted.
The second area of work was organizing medical examinations for women. Due to the lack of practice of contacting doctors and the fear of the state institutions, Roma women rarely receive adequate assistance.
“Going to the doctor was often stressful. Women believed that they would not be listened to or that they would not understand anything, so we had to go with them,” said Yulia.
Instead of consulting specialists, Roma families typically resort to self-medication, with painkillers being the most common treatment. Through the initiative, women were able to undergo ultrasound exams, basic lab tests, consultations, and also learned how to use the electronic system for making medical appointments.
The third area was household improvements and digital literacy. Thanks to this, three large families received targeted household support: washing machines, access to running water, and essential appliances. Children who had previously been unable to study now attend online classes. Young people acquired basic digital skills, for example, how to register on the Helsi.me platform or book a doctor’s appointment.
Alongside providing aid, the team also worked on a documentary film about Roma families who fled temporarily occupied territories to Zaporizhzhia. At the center of the story are Roma women, and at the center of the action is solidarity.
As Freefilmers note, the most valuable outcome was not material things, but transformation. Roma women came one step closer to becoming visible, confident, and recognized. In this sense, the initiative is about film as a tool for support, not only as observation.
Stronger Together: Feminist Solidarity in Action
Despite their different focuses, the TENET Center for Social Transformations, the Kherson City Society of Young Roma, and Freefilmers share a common vision: Roma women are the ones who create change. They operate at the complex intersection of systemic racism, sexism, poverty, and full-scale war. But instead of disappearing, they take responsibility for themselves, for their community, and for the future. Their experience is not about exclusivity, but about the strength that emerges in conditions where everything seems to be aimed at silencing.
In each of the initiatives, female leadership is at the forefront. Not always loud and official, but deep and persistent. This is leadership that is not based on competition, but on support. On the willingness to share knowledge, experience, resources, and responsibility. Roma women create an environment in which others can feel safe, grow, make mistakes, and try again. This is more than just helping: it is creating a new culture of interaction.
In these initiatives, feminist solidarity is not a slogan but a daily practice. Joint meetings, educational programs, horizontal ties between teams and communities — all of these create a sense of unity. Under constant pressure, this support becomes a foundation that allows the work to continue even when the state remains absent and society is not ready to listen or provide backing. Thanks to this, Roma women are not only defending their rights, they are paving the way for others.
All three initiatives show that change does not come from the outside. It is created by those who know what vulnerability is, yet refuse to let it define their lives. Roma women are active participants in transformative processes that change not only their communities but also perceptions of leadership, care, and solidarity within national minorities. And their voices must not only be heard but amplified and supported.
Yana Radchenko