It is a wonderful autumn season in Hamburg and last weekend (28 - 29 September 2024) in a picturesque place of the city, in a picturesque place of the city, in the Foundation ‘Samaritan Workers’ of Germany ASB, was held another seminar-training ‘Psychological assistance to victims of war in Ukraine’.

The seminar was attended by Ukrainian women from Kiev and Kiev region, Odessa, Mariupol (Donetsk region), Melitopol, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporozhye regions, and Crimea.

 The project is implemented by a married couple of doctors, political immigrants from Russia, Alexander and Galina Goncharenko.

Alla Danilich-Skakun, a psychologist from Kharkiv, acted as a trainer and speaker of this seminar-training.

During two days she not only managed to master a large amount of theoretical knowledge and practical skills on psychological self-help and mutual aid, but also to create a friendly team of like-minded women.

According to the tradition, at the end of the seminar the project team and the participants summarised the results.

 A lot of warm words were said by the Ukrainians to the project organisers and the psychologist.

Grateful feedback about the project was not only verbal, but also written in Ukrainian, Russian and German.

Project manager Alexander Goncharenko noted that sixty-five women from Ukraine received psychological help during six training seminars.

All the participants of the seminar will continue to communicate in the group WhatsApp: ‘Psychological assistance to victims of war in Ukraine’.

The project team and the participants of the seminar-training express their gratitude to the sponsors of the seminar, the Toepfer Foundation from Hamburg , thank the team and the head of ASB Günter Arndt for their hospitality and tasty lunches, and the Managing Director of the Hamburg Foundation for Politically Persecuted Persons , Martina Baeurle, for her constant assistance to the project. 

At the end of the event, Alexander Goncharenko informed the audience that the seventh psychological training seminar will be held on 2-3 November and asked the women to share the information with other refugee women. 

Photo 1 Collective photo of the workshop

Photo 2 Alexander Goncharenko talks about the project

Photo 3 Psychologist at work

Photo 4 Lunch at the seminar is a sacred thing

Photo 5 Alla Danilich-Skakun helps to master the methodology

Photo 6 Group technique

Photo 7 Collective summarising

Photo 8 Each participant summarises her individual results

Photo 9 Final table of work of all participants of the training

Last Saturday and Sunday (27 - 28 July 2024) a psychological training seminar was held at the ASB Hamburg office.

The seminar was attended by thirteen Ukrainian women who were forced to leave their homes in Vinnitsa, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Luhansk and Kherson regions, Mariupol and Kiev after the beginning of the full-scale Russian military aggression and ended up in Germany.  

The project ‘Psychological Assistance to Victims of War in Ukraine’ is implemented by Russian political emigrants Alexander and Galina Goncharenko with the participation of Ukrainian psychologists Alla Danilich-Skakun and Natalia Stepanenko.

The participants of the seminar are women with difficult life fate, with difficulties in adapting to new life realities and with different degrees of severity of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Despite all the difficulties, the professionalism of the psychologist (Natalia Stepanenko), the experience and desire to help of the project organisers, Ukrainian national cuisine, forest air and wonderful weather helped the women to overcome psychological problems.

By tradition, at the end of the seminar the participants and members of the project team summarised the results of the two-day work, exchanged their impressions and wishes.

Project manager Alexander Goncharenko shared the results and plans of the project.

Fifty-three refugee women from Ukraine received psychological assistance during five training seminars, and two more training seminars are planned for this year (September, November).

Alexander and Galina Goncharenko thanked Martina Baeurle, Managing Director of the Hamburg Foundation for Politically Persecuted Persons , for her help in implementing the project, and Günter Arndt, Head of ASB Hamburg , for his hospitality and financial support of the seminar.

Photo 1.  Group photo of the fifth seminar-training;

Photo 2. Alexander Goncharenko opens the seminar;

Photo 3. The ASB garden is cosy and warm;

Photo 4. The Buddha statue became a kind of good talisman for the participants of the seminars;

Photo 5. Training is training, but lunch is on schedule;

Photo 6. Practising psychological exercises in the fresh air;

Photo 7. Collective photo in the ASB library.