Natalia Gourjii: Over two decades, Rokada has become an influential player among Ukraine’s humanitarian organizations
The most important thing is people. The most critical is assistance. To be proud of the entire team. To develop together with like-minded individuals. Natalia Gourjii, the chair of the board of the charity foundation Rokada, talks about how a small charitable organization managed to become an influential humanitarian player in Ukraine.
How did Rokada begin 23 years ago, and how much has the foundation’s mission changed since then?
Natalia Gourjii: The foundation’s mission has remained unchanged throughout all 23 years – to help people who need it. These include people with disabilities, older individuals, large families, and children without parental care, as well as refugees and asylum seekers. With the full-scale invasion, we scaled our support to internally displaced Ukrainians, veterans, and their families, and now we also work with Ukrainians returning from abroad. At the same time, we focus on multi-faceted assistance to communities so that they can integrate people and make decisions for sustainable development.
You mentioned scaling – what was the growth point for the foundation?
Natalia Gourjii: Imagine, we started with 20 like-minded individuals working in a single office in Kyiv. Back then, our vector was oriented toward foreigners seeking asylum in Ukraine. Over these two decades, our team has grown 35 times, and today it is already over 700 people who embody our values across 17 regions. However, we can say that we now work all over Ukraine, except for the occupied regions. This means that through our projects, support is felt by both communities and organizations outside the regions where we are represented. These include, for example, Poltava, Cherkasy, and soon Odesa regions. That is how we became one of the leading foundations among Ukraine’s humanitarian organizations, and, I must admit, I am very proud of this. This means we managed to build trust with international donors, the public sector, fellow organizations, as well as with the people we help.
The Rokada’s values? What can you say about them?
Natalia Gourjii: We operate according to humanitarian principles based on equal access to assistance, confidentiality, tolerance, humanity, impartiality, transparency, and accountability. Our greatest value is people. Those whom we help, and those who provide this help – the employees of Rokada. It is our colleagues who are the bearers of the belief that charity can change the lives of individuals, entire families, and whole communities.
Which period was the most difficult for the team, and how did you manage to get through it?
Natalia Gourjii: When the full-scale invasion began, we first and foremost needed to understand how to act. We put the office work on pause and told our colleagues in Kyiv to save themselves and their families. But even during this period, the team understood that our help was important and we needed to act, we needed to reach out to donors and build a relevant and effective system of support for Ukrainians. Perhaps this very period was the most difficult, but we managed to live through it and come out of it stronger.
Another interesting point is that when we started developing cooperation with international partners in early 2022, they were training us on how to act in crisis conditions. Today, we are already sharing our expertise at the international level.
It would be interesting to hear, what is the story behind the emergence of the slogan ‘Support that you feel with your heart’?
Natalia Gourjii: This story begins with the foundation’s strategic session in 2023. At that time, we gathered coordinators from the regions to develop a vision for further work. At one point, a colleague said metaphorically about what we do: ‘we put hats on hearts.’ That is, we offer care for a person – so that they are fed, safe, dressed, and looked after. It was this very meaning, that a person feels our support with their heart, that became the slogan of Rokada, which most successfully reflects our daily work.
Which areas of the foundation’s work are prioritized today?
Natalia Gourjii: We started with the socio-psychological support of refugees and their integration, and today – it is advocacy, both internal and international, legal protection, institutional support, assistance to communities in equipping housing for internally displaced persons, the reintegration of veterans, the prevention of gender-based violence, and the creation of barrier-free spaces. In total, there are over two dozen directions, each of which matters because it touches a certain audience or solves a specific problem.
You mentioned international activity. Recently, the Ukraine Recovery Conference took place in Gdansk, and the Rokada team was there? What insights did you return with?
Natalia Gourjii: One of the main conclusions of the conference is that humanitarian response and recovery cannot be viewed as two separate stages. While helping people today, we must already think about how the community will live and develop tomorrow.
For Rokada, this is not a new idea, but in Gdansk, we saw once again how crucial the nexus approach is becoming: combining humanitarian aid, long-term development, recovery, and strengthening community capacity. This requires a partnership between the state, local self-government, civil society and international organizations, as well as the real participation of the communities themselves in defining priorities.
For example, there are interesting development projects in the Mykolaiv region – in Snihurivka, Voznesensk, and Kobleve. They are all different, but they are united by a long-term logic and prospects for the residents, who are learning a new profession, receiving grants for their own businesses, and creating jobs.
And finally: what does Rokada mean to you?
Natalia Gourjii: For me, Rokada is a powerful living organism that breathes in unison, changes in unison, and equally unitedly wants the development of Ukraine and victory. And it also wants happy people around. And each of us tries to make our contribution to this. To be honest, I will say that sometimes our specialists work at the limit of their capabilities, but they still help others. This is a team of like-minded individuals and empathetic, caring professionals. This is a great treasure, and it is an honor for me to work with such colleagues.
At the same time, Rokada is a charitable organization that is trusted by both people and donors. Today, we have partnerships with more than 40 international foundations and foreign governments that support Ukrainians through our implementation projects, and we have implemented nearly seventy of them. We have provided assistance to over 330,000 people since 2022.
Also, Rokada is an expert community that influences decisions and helps improve existing assistance services in the regions.
To sum up, I will say that Rokada is exactly that very support that you feel with your heart.
Photo of Natalia Gourjii: Alyona Malashyna / Oxfam
