After a full-scale invasion, I lost my job. The village where we lived with my family was under occupation. Because of closed kindergartens and schools, I had to be with the children at home, so there was no opportunity to go somewhere to work either.

I remembered my dream of making craft cheeses. Especially since I had a supply of sourdough from my experiments with cheese even before the war — that's where my journey began. In order to gain more knowledge in production, after de-occupation, I entered the university for the specialty “Food Technologies”.

Now I already have my own recipes and regular customers: I make cheeses with my own hands, and my husband helps to send orders. But I dreamed of expanding my business, creating a cheese factory and opening cafe-shops in Kharkiv and Chuguev.

Self-employment training helped me realize this dream. Here I gained useful knowledge about running my own business and won a grant. We were explained in detail how to draw up a business plan, promote your business in social networks, how to keep accounting and pay taxes. I learned how to find my idea and present it correctly.

This is extremely valuable and necessary knowledge for me.

Before the full-scale war, I had my own children's TV studio in the city of Chuguev, Kharkiv region, where I live with my family. During its work, the studio has become a place of creative activity for many children.

But everything was destroyed by the war, we were forced to close our creative enterprise. I worked as a teacher at a school, but the salary was too small to provide the family with everything they needed, so I began to look for new opportunities. So I got into the course of self-employment.

Here I gained skills and knowledge in accounting that helped me better understand the financial aspect of my future business and to open a sole proprietorship. Together with my husband, I decided to establish a center for children, where we will teach English, shoot video lessons, children's stories and programs. For this, the two of us have all the necessary skills: I have an English teacher's degree and international certificates, and my husband worked as a videographer for a long time.

Thanks to the project, I won a grant and with these funds I purchased accessories and equipment for the operation of the studio.



Thanks to the project, I have been able to resume classes with children and it helps a lot to live, do what I like and feed my family.