“Helping people get home.” The story of Nina Hulak, who repairs homes damaged in missile strikes

They are repairing apartments so that people have somewhere to return to

The three of us are standing together: Nina’s five-year-old daughter Tania is hugging her. The girl is already used to going with her mother to volunteer events and training because her mother has no one to leave her with.

“Once we went to a training camp in Ivanivka together. I was conducting a first aid training for volunteers, and Tania was talking to everyone there. She is a sociable girl and is not afraid of people. I don’t even know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing,” Nina smiles.

Under her bright pink jacket, she wears a black sweatshirt with the organization’s logo. Chernihiv BUR branch has existed for two years. Last year, Nina coordinated its work, but on the eve of the invasion, she handed over her powers to a colleague. She wanted to take a break from the management and concentrate on training other volunteers. But after February 24, the newly elected coordinator of the organization fled abroad. Many of the women from the team left, and two men joined the territorial defense. She had to look for new people and craftsmen and become a leader again. They began to rebuild the shattered buildings of Chernihiv and the region as soon as this became possible.

It works like this: BUR receives grants and money from foundations, and local branches search for damaged buildings and collect applications from local residents whose houses were damaged by shelling. Then, the organization buys building materials, and volunteers who work under the careful supervision of craftsmen help with repairs.

“It is impossible to build a house from scratch with volunteer hands, but installing windows or fixing the roof so that people have somewhere to return is a doable task. That’s what we’re doing,” Nina explains.

“I was born in Chernihiv and I’m not going anywhere from here” 

After February 24, friends and acquaintances invited her to Italy, Germany, and Poland. But she decided firmly: she stays in Ukraine. I didn’t even want to go far from my native Chernihiv: I took my daughter and moved to live with relatives in the region. They weren’t occupied, but it was scary: the region was continuously shelled, and a significant part of it was captured by the Russians for a month and a half. Civilians were killed and buildings were looted there. But they didn’t reach the village where Nina was staying.

She started helping people right away. She wanted to get herself together and do something so she wouldn’t go crazy with what was happening around her.

“I realized that if you just sit and scroll through the news on your phone, nothing will come of it. I contacted the local girls who stayed here, and we started searching for and bringing medicines to those who needed them,” Nina recalls.

In early April, Russian troops were driven out of Chernihiv region and people began to calculate losses. In the region, there were 3,500 destroyed houses and several thousand damaged ones. Chernihiv mayor Vladyslav Atroshenko said that the Russians destroyed 70% of the city. ZAZ district, where Nina’s apartment is located on the 9th floor of a high-rise building, was hit hardest by the shelling. But her house was lucky — it almost survived. When she returned home after the evacuation, she found her apartment with mildew, but not destroyed.

“I am standing in the kitchen and realizing that there is a real shower there — a stream of water flows directly from the lamp because the roof has been broken. The windows have already been patched up and installed. We still need some repairs because humidity causes mold and mildew everywhere,” Nina says.

By that time, only two people from the entire riser blocks of flats stayed there, the rest were evacuated. There was no transport, so Nina bought herself a bicycle.

“I wanted to buy it for a long time, but there were always some reasons not to do it. And at that time I had to somehow move around the city, because buses did not run, and taxis are expensive. So I rode this bike to work and brought humanitarian aid. Now transport is running, so now I use the bike for rest and mental reset. When I want to calm down and relax, I ride a bike around the city or go to the forest,” she says.

"This is my front"

Nina was engaged in volunteering since the University period, studying to become a social worker. She helped organize games and various training for children. She says that this experience helped to develop communication skills that were useful in her future career.

Now Nina works at the local youth center as the Head of the Youth Work Department. Gradually, she started volunteering at BUR — first, she attended a presentation of the movement, then she became a communication manager, and after some time she became a volunteer and coordinator.

“In June, we dismantled the rubble of the youth center and made cages for animals in the Center for Veterinary Medicine and Sterilization, which suffered from shelling. There are a lot of abandoned animals in Chernihiv: I was horrified when I saw how many purebred dogs run around the streets — both Huskies and Labradors, all kinds of breeds. People let them go during evacuation. And we made cages so that they could be attached to the shelter,” says Nina.

We get in the car and go to the House of Culture in Pavlivka, which is 6 kilometers away from Chernihiv. The building, which was completely renovated just a few years ago, stands without windows and with a leaky roof. Nina arrives to assess the damage and understand how much time is needed to repair it. We need to finish before winter because snow and rain will damage the building even more and then it will take much more money and effort to restore it.

Then we go to Bobrovytsia — this is an area that was also badly damaged by shelling. We enter a two-story house where BUR volunteers repaired the roof and installed windows. An elderly man who lives on the first floor lost one leg after a shelling. A family lives on the second floor. On the eve of the invasion, they finished a major renovation in their apartment. Now it needs to be repaired again.

“Lots of shells and missiles hit Bobrovytsia. Almost all the houses were windowless. Now you can see new windows almost everywhere. Some people installed them on their own and others got help from various foundations and organizations, says Nina. — I enjoy walking the streets and seeing the houses that we helped to restore. I like to realize that we make it possible for people to return to their homes. We are all doing something to win now, and this is my front.”

This partner piece was published as an advertisement. The article was created in collaboration with the UN Women project “Decentralization Reforms and Community Security: Transformative Approaches to Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in Ukraine” funded by the Danish government.

Journalist Tetiana Honchenko, editors Khrystyna Kotsira and Victoria Beha, designer Tetiana Kostik, creative producer Anna Sokha, and translator Khrystyna Skorenka worked on the article.