Our fund productively and successfully cooperates with a grass-root organization of people with mental disabilities - “Friends' Union”.
“Friends’ Union” is a self-help group for people with an experience of mental health problems. It has been operating since 1997,
offering rehabilitation, counseling, and support in training and employment issues for an overall of 250 users and former users of mental health
services as well as their family members and involving over 20 volunteers and health care professionals.
The weekly meetings of the group are held in the premises of Jewish Charitable Fund, involving the Fund’s staff members.
The group’s activities include:
• Self-help meetings and workshops for users, their relatives and friends
• Training courses in communication skills aimed at building self-assurance
• Classes in practical life such as basic nutrition and cooking, money management and logic
• Art, poetry and foreign languages classes
• Individual and group support, advice from professionals such as lawyers, psychiatrists and psychologists
• Concerts, exhibitions and presentations
• Employment skills training like furniture repair and restoration, catering, agriculture and manual labor
Self help groups are self-governed by the board which consists of people with mental disabilities (Users’ Council).
Activities, projects of the group are run jointly by User’s Council and volunteers of the group.
The activities of the organization are supported by the JCF “Beiteinu – Our Home,” many of the activities have been funded through governmental
and international grant programs such as: Hamlet Trust, TACIS/Institutional Building Partnership Program. Members of “Friends Union” self – help
group have been involved in the following research and advocacy projects:
• July 2000 - June 2001 Hamlet Trust Project “Developing Community Center ‘Friends Union’ for employment support of people with mental
health problems based on community work principles”
• July 2001 - June 2002 Annual Hamlet Trust Small Grant
• September 2002 organizing and conducting international workshop “Regional Networking Event of Hamlet Trust on Social Enterprise”.
Publishing materials of the workshop
• April 2003 - September 2004 - TACIS/ Institutions Building Partnership Programme: “Developing self help and employment opportunities
for people with mental health problems in Ukraine, through partnership between SDSA and Hamlet Trust”
• September 2003 - July 2004 - Annual Hamlet Trust Small Grant “Regional Center on Social Enterprise Initiatives and development
of social enterprise initiatives for people with mental health problems”
• June 2004 – February 2005 – European Youth Foundation projects – “Human rights education for young users of mental health services
and volunteers”
• September 2007 – August 2008 – Creative Self-Realization Workshops – JCF “Beiteinu – Our Home” community development program
JCF “Beiteinu – Our Home” guarantees long-lasting support and permanent partnership to the “Friends’ Union” because the self-help group has become an integral part of the community and the community life, while it’s sustainability is recognized as part of the Fund’s mission.
Activities supported by Disability Rights Fund
Together with the Beiteinu’s professionals the group members implement their own initiatives aimed at reintegration and socialization of these vulnerable people. Despite the group’s effective response to the topical social and psychological challenges, certain legal issues have often been left unresolved. Using the group members’ experience in self-government, we addressed the Disability Rights Fund with an initiative to study the inconsistencies between the Ukrainian mental health reality and the provisions of the UN Convention on the rights of people with disabilities. The proposed project was approved. It implies conduction of a research focusing on difficulties in the mentally disabled people’s rights realization, including basic civil and economic rights. After learning about the Convention, the group activists will carry out a field study, and then make the results known to the public to raise social awareness in the field.