January 2023 newsletter
Dear friends of "After service"!
Welcome to our February 2023 newsletter.
Welcome to our February 2023 newsletter
Experience tells us that returning to civilian life isn’t easy. Veterans often struggle to ask for help and fail to tap into relevant local, national, and international resources dedicated to assisting them.
Transitioning to civilian life means making dramatic changes. Veterans grapple with adapting to civilian workplace cultures and institutions, upskilling, getting relevant professional experience, and learning how to translate old skills to navigate civilian life.
That’s why we started "After service" in 2022.
Pislya Sluzhby is a Ukrainian non-governmental organization focused on improving the quality of life for Ukrainian veterans. Our team is led by a Ukrainian veteran and is made up of fellow Ukrainian veterans and Ukrainians dedicated to supporting our defenders.
Our purpose
Ukrainian military veterans have defended their home, families, and the free world from tyranny.
They shed blood to defend us, and some have made the ultimate sacrifice. Ukrainian veterans deserve navigable resources to help them succeed and improve their quality of life after service and reduce veteran suicide.
We support veterans through 1) micro-grants to support veteran quality of life improvement, 2) providing a Ukrainian veteran service community integration, and 3) through engaging Ukrainian businesses to hire and retain veterans in the workforce
Some of our work
Defender of Mariupol, after the injury and the captivity
While the Defenders of “Azovstal” and Mariupol kept their defense, Ukraine and the whole world followed news and prayed for their courage.
Our team is supporting one of these heroes. This Defender was seriously injured during the battle of the Avostal and also was held captivity as a prisoner of war. After his return, he underwent several critical surgeries to fix his various injuries and still struggles with his eyesight still today. Prior to February 2022, he previously worked at the "Azovstal" plant.
For his next chapter, this Defender wanted to re-train as an IT-specialist. Our team helped this hero navigate various veteran-related issues around post-employment and funded his front-end developer programming course and an English language course. We continue to work with employers to help this hero find a job in the IT space after he completes his training.
Coordinating legal assistance for a wounded warrior who was injured in the Donetsk region in May 2022
This May evening (2022) soldier remember for all life, because his life changed dramatically in a moment - he lost his able to hear and speak. “It was in one of the settlements of Donetsk region. At 20.15-20.30, after the air strike of the Armed Forces on hostile positions, we received an answer, artillery+reactive system of salvo fire”.
He lost his hearing and language, but doctors give hope for recovery. During the treatment, the veteran asked “After Service” to help obtain proper documents. It is difficult to do this either through bureaucratic red tape or through his continued inability to communicate (hear and speak).
“After Service” involved the law association “VISIDE”, which render assistance to the veteran in receiving all documents from the military part for submitting one-time disability money assistance, namely: Certificate of injury (original), copy of documents of official investigation, report of direct participation in combat actions and money certificate.
Health issues for two defenders of Mariupol/Azovstal
These two guys contact us with similar questions, although, of course, each of them has its own life-story. One of them has in captivity, but both have severe injuries and complications that have affected the hearing and nervous system. And the lives of young men who have lost the ability to hear are difficult to imagine because they are divided into "before" and "after" periods.
"After Service" found a good clinic in Kiev for hearing diagnostics to solve such issues. Now Ukrainian defender is undergoing diagnostics for further treatment.
Building a community of Ukrainian veteran service organizations
In late January, our “After Service” team hosted a community integration event with several veteran service organizations. It was an opportunity to bring a community of volunteers, veterans, government officials, companies, and non-profits together. Together to discuss our unified purpose: improve the quality of life of all Ukrainian veterans.
Attendees discussed many critical veteran issues, including:
- How to improve connections among the veteran support providers
- Important aspects of psychological assistance to veterans and the need to modernize the view on psychological problems in society,
- Necessity and difficulties in rehabilitation, Neurorehabilitation and rehabilitation of the nervous system in Ukraine,
- Opportunities of prosthetics for military in Ukraine and abroad,
- Needs and possibilities of prosthetics and surgery for military and civilian with severe maxillofacial injuries, adaptation to life,
- Legal support of military and veterans in Ukraine,
- Activity of veterans-entrepreneurs and cases of successful projects.
How you can help?
Tell your veteran contacts about our work. Send them to our website for more information.
Volunteer your time and/or expertise. The need is real and as the war grinds on! Ukrainian veterans after victory against the latest phase Russian military aggression. Click here to contact us directly.
Spread the word about the importance of taking care of our veterans. Help us tell our story through social media by connecting to our Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn pages.
Our group is called “After Service”. However, there are many of our friends, our family, our brothers and sisters in arms that are not “after service”, they are in service…defending our beautiful Ukraine. Let’s work together to help those who protect all of us and provide us with our ability to live as a free people.
Together to victory!
Glory to Ukraine!