Yuliya is the Founder and Director of NGO Girls, a not-for-profit organisation assisting women and children in Ukraine; a mission which has become even more vital since the Russian war in Ukraine began in February 2022.
Yuliya first became aware of the CLP when she was involved in local consultations with Ukrainian NGOs held during the program’s start-up phase. As someone who had been thrust into the humanitarian sector because of the war, she was a perfect candidate for the first CLP Seed course which was held in February 2022.
“As I came to the non-governmental sector from business in 2019, I needed knowledge of how crisis response works and how to implement projects efficiently during crises,” Yuliya explains.
The CLP Seed course was very timely as it provided us with an understanding of how the international support framework functions, including which humanitarian actors are involved and how they influence assistance to Ukraine during the war.
“This knowledge greatly improved our interaction with partners and gave clarity on whom to contact inside the response system and how to build our organisational capacity. The NGO Girls gained many advantages during project implementation because we were well-informed about the needs and requirements of partner organisations.”
After CLP Seed was piloted, Centre for Humanitarian Leadership then introduced two more levels of CLP courses, Grow and Extend, aimed at middle-level and senior leaders in the humanitarian sector. Yuliya completed Grow in June 2023 and then Extend in October 2023.
Yuliya decided to enrol in CLP Grow and Extend to help manage NGO Girls’ massive expansion, in response to the war in Ukraine. The organisation grew twenty-fold in 2022 and pivoted its activities to include financial, humanitarian and psychological assistance to victims of the war, and social rehabilitation of Internally Displaced People (IDPs), reaching 150,000 people with its programs that year.
Yuliya says leading the organisation during conflict while undergoing such rapid expansion has been a huge challenge.
“Studying in the Grow and Extend levels of training provided me with a broad understanding of the difficulties faced by team leaders, not only in Ukraine but worldwide,” Yuliya explains.
The diverse cohort members, each from different contexts, shared personal stories of success, failure, and the daily challenges they confront. This experience sharing allowed us to look at our own problems from different angles and find comfortable solutions.”
Yuliya’s work has recently been recognised with the Ann Klein Women’s Award, an annual honour bestowed by the Heinrich Böll Foundation of Germany.
The award’s jury noted that they were “particularly impressed by the perseverance with which Yuliya Sporysh and members of the NGO Girls, even in wartime, continue to strive to increase the visibility of women in society, for more leadership roles for women, and to overcome stereotypes*”.
Now, Yuliya is sharing her knowledge with other humanitarian leaders in Ukraine, working as a Facilitator with CHL, and supporting her NGO Girls workers to participate in CLP. Most recently, Yuliya facilitated CLP Seed for 31 participants alongside fellow Ukrainian national Yurii Bezkorovainyi (pictured below right).
“The course facilitation is an amazing opportunity to share the knowledge and experience I already have with a wider audience, inspiring other organisations to grow and take on bigger and more complex projects,” she says.
There is a great need for local humanitarian workers to take such courses, as they significantly help to provide necessary and timely assistance and gain strong leadership and teamwork skills. I hope there will be more such great training sessions for our colleagues.”
The CLP is supported by the Center for Disaster Philanthropy and Fondation de France.
Find out more about the CLP.
**Reasons Given by the Jury: Ann Klein Women’s Award 2024, https://www.boell.de/en/2023/12/08/reasons-given-jury-anne-klein-womens-award-2024
