10 December 2025
(PHOTO: mfcua.org)
A team of volunteers has been created in Odesa to respond to damage to cultural sites after shelling. The newly created group has undergone specialized training that allows them to work together with museums, libraries and other city institutions during crisis situations.
This was reported by Intent.
In October, the city hosted a training course "Guardians of Heritage: Volunteer Action after Missile Strikes," organized by Museum for Change in cooperation with ACURE and NeMo: Ukrainian Heritage Monitoring Lab with the support of the international organization Cultural Emergency Response (Netherlands) as part of the Black Sea Regional Hub project.
The program included six online lectures by crisis response experts, restorers, museum professionals, and security specialists. It also included two days of practical training, during which volunteers practiced actions in conditions close to real life: fixing damage, primary stabilization of exhibits, sorting fragments, working with documentation and collections, and security algorithms at the site of an attack.
In total, 160 people took part in the program, 90 of whom completed the practical part. This group has become the first core of the community in Odesa capable of acting quickly in the face of new threats to cultural sites.
"It is extremely important for the city: now there are trained people who know how to protect and preserve valuable objects, which significantly increases the chances of preserving our heritage," the organizers noted.
In the future, the volunteers plan to continue their cooperation with museums, participate in trainings, and become part of a permanent team of cultural property defenders.
UNESCO has recently added 19 Ukrainian sites to the International List of Cultural Heritage in Need of Special Protection. The list includes six sites from the Odesa region, including the Akkerman Fortress in Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, the Kirkha building (St. Paul's Church), the Seaside Stairs, the Odesa Museum of Western and Eastern Art, the Odesa National Art Museum, and the Odesa National Scientific Library.
And in early October, the Government approved a draft law on the ratification of a grant agreement with Italy aimed at restoring Odesa' s cultural heritage. The program envisages the restoration of museums, the Philharmonic, and other historical monuments in the central part of the city.
Анна Літман