Work portal for Ukrainian refugees

Children & youth

May 5

Who: Europrtsya

What: Children and youth

Where: Ukrain and the Netherlands

Project period: 2022

In April 2022 the Grieg Foundation made an emergency transfer to a newly started Ukrainian job portal which needed financial support. Thanks to the fast donation of NOK 100.000, Europratsya now helps displaced Ukrainians across Europe to find work quicker.

The concept for a Ukrainian-language pan-European database of all work-related information dated back to the 24th February 2022, when the full-scale Russian invasion forced difficult choices on a whole country of 43 million citizens.

One Serbian developer who had experienced the terrors of bombing a couple of decades earlier was quick to collaborate with a Norwegian/Italian ecommerce partner. The volunteers wanted to build a digital database to help ease the transition from a familiar everyday life in Ukraine to a new existence outside its borders, with new languages, new rules and different skill requirements.

Together they launched Europratsya.com, a non-profit aimed at preventing exploitation of vulnerable employees and ensuring their financial safety. The donation from the Grieg Foundation funds part-time work for 10 Ukrainian university students.

In Groningen, Netherlands four young Ukrainians work daily to translate job vacancies into their mother tongue and to research a range of practical matters. They collect data from across Europe on job challenges like having a nurse qualification accredited in Austria, acquiring a work visa in Switzerland, or completing interrupted university courses in Ukraine through free global resources.

An additional domestic team of five Ukrainian undergraduates spread across cities from Lviv to Kyiv support Europratsya with targeted marketing work. Enrolled in university in Lviv, they’ve all had their education disrupted. On behalf of Europratsya they analyse Ukrainian media, identify relevant communication partners, and deliver the outreach and the technical work to promote quality jobs in Europe to fellow citizens who’ve left their homes.

At the start of May 2022 13 million Ukrainians have been forced to flee, and about 5 million of them now live outside their own country. The ten-strong team of Ukrainian researchers, translators and marketers who help their countrymen and -women find jobs are in the early stages of rebuilding Ukraine’s economy. In the process they protect employees of all ages from being marginalised in the new societies where they need a foothold, whether for some months or longer.

Over time, Europratsya will use its network of employers already committed to social corporate responsibility and match them with demobilised Ukrainian soldiers.

New vulnerable groups in the labour market will emerge. Europratsya plans to remain a reliable ally in the workplace for those whose lives were turned upside down by the 2022 war.