Young Ukrainians Are Cleaning Up Their Cities Through ‘Repair Raves'

What’s the story?

• Young Ukrainians are organizing “repair raves” to attract people to help clean up their cities while they dance and rebuild their communities. 
• After more than 250 days of attacks from Russian forces, over 100,000 homes, 700 critical cultural facilities, and 20 youth centers have been destroyed. 
• The young activists joined Repair Together, a long line of grassroots design activists drawing on friendship and community to attract people to help repair their war-torn cities. 
• Repair raves intersect cultural events with fundraising, rallies, or petitions, focusing on collaboration efforts. 

Community aspect

• One of the Repair Together organizers, Marina Grebinna, told Dazed that the raves grew from just 50 volunteers from their first event in July to hundreds during their recent parties. People are traveling from as far as the U.S. to get involved. 
• Grebinna continued:

“...it was a good way to involve a lot of people, and we really wanted to make volunteering seem like a lifestyle choice…Now, after three months of work on this project, we see a lot of familiar faces.”

• Community-driven events allow those impacted by the war to reconnect to each other, their culture, and their music. It helps everyone resist the oppression of war and the desensitization of the ongoing conflict. The organization hopes to restore a sense of home despite the conflict, grief, and suffering. 
• Volunteers connect through music and spending time listening to stories of survival, all with the same goal of working to build a “new Ukraine” and being a proactive part of the future. 
• Repair raves have a history of activism that other activists don’t usually recognize. 

How can you get involved?

• After the recovery began, the young, passionate rave-goers started hosting repair raves to meet the need for community labor. As winter approaches, the need for repair is becoming increasingly urgent.
• You can learn how to get involved through the Repair Together Instagram.
• Join the volunteer team of Repair Together here and the building repair group here. 
• Donate to Repair Together here. 

-Jamie Epstein

(Photo credit: Twitter/@dattalion)