How we work in Ukraine
Starting in early 2022, following Russia’s full-scale military aggression, CMBM began bringing population-wide trauma relief to the people of Ukraine.
In April 2023, CMBM secured a sub-awardee, one-year grant from Pact, funded by USAID, to provide an intensive trauma relief program for Ukrainian clinicians, physicians, educators, community leaders and others serving a broad population across eight oblasts: Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, Odessa, Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Kyiv, and Chernihiv. The program taught comprehensive, evidence-based trauma-relief and resiliency-building models that participants have been using in their own lives and disseminating into their communities.
A Story of Resilience
Since we began working with survivors of the Russian occupation, we’ve been deeply inspired by their strength and bravery. Participating from an active war zone, our Ukrainian trainees have demonstrated an immense commitment to sharing mind-body medicine with their communities. We’d like to highlight one of the trainees, Olena Soldatenko, as told by her mentor and supervisor, CMBM Faculty J. Anna Looney.
Olena is a social worker who has conducted Mind-Body Skills Groups with participants in the Petrivska Village Council. Over the course of eight weeks, under the supervision of Anna, Olena taught her group mind-body skills to help them cope with the emotional pressures they’ve experienced over the last year. After completing the eight-week series, her group, empowered by what they’d learned, began calling themselves “The Guardians.”
This group became an important part of Olena’s life. She formed close bonds with The Guardians, and was eager to join them on their healing journey. The MBSG participants uncovered significant changes within themselves through the act of drawing, and that the drawings revealed feelings stored deep below the surface. Though the eight-week series has ended, The Guardians continue to meet twice a week in the community center and knit socks for Ukrainian soldiers. They are staying connected to each other in a new and deeper way.
One week, during Anna and Olena’s regular supervision meeting, Olena joined the Zoom call under serious duress. Kyiv was under siege, and she was in a bomb shelter. Olena and Anna sat together practicing Soft Belly Breathing. Calm and tears came. A few moments later, Olena’s interpreter, Natalia Derhun, joined the call, and the three of them carried on with their usual supervision call, despite the dangerous circumstances Olena and Natalia faced.
The impact of Olena Soldatenko’s experience with CMBM is spreading like ripples in a still pond, spreading out to the wider Ukrainian population she serves in her job, as well as impacting [her] professional peers.
Olena is fully committed to learning mind-body skills and has completed our Professional Training Program and Advanced Training Program. Since completing the first two phases of CMBM training, Olena and her colleagues have noticed a change, both in the communities they’ve shared these skills with and in themselves. Olena and The Guardians are regulating her emotions and coping with the traumatic impacts of war and conflict.
Olena, Natalia, and The Guardians are a testament to the power of mind-body medicine and how these skills can help bring peace and healing to survivors of war and conflict. We thank Olena, Natalia, and all of the trainees for their work and their commitment to learning mind-body medicine skills for themselves and their communities.
