A year of courage: Thank you Lviv!
As the war remains ever present - nearly four years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine - Lviv’s year as European Youth Capital 2025 is about to come to an end.
This has not been a regular European Youth Capital year.
Beyond the struggles of living life in a state of war, there exists a group of young people for whom, as they like to say, everything “keeps moving.” They have been experiencing two realities where war sits at the table alongside work, dreams, conversations, coffee breaks, meetings, and festival rehearsals. It’s about time to recognise their efforts and express gratitude for their commitment to youth participation and bearing the seeds of change within not just Lviv, but the whole of Ukraine.
Mind the Gap: between Brussels and Lviv
Sounds obvious? Either way, we - the European Youth Forum’s team - would like to acknowledge that we’re writing these very lines from a position of safety, as outsiders looking in, while Lviv’s team write amid air raid alerts and a disrupted daily life.
This gap is precisely why co-drafting this article matters.
We were in Lviv just for a few days and experienced the city in the form of meetings, events, and discussions. Lviv’s team, on the other hand, lives this rhythm constantly, even when the day begins with sirens or when someone needs to quickly find shelter. And despite all this, they remain incredibly professional and attentive.
As Vika Pitsyshyn, programme manager of the Lviv European Youth Capital programme highlights:
“We don’t see our work as something heroic – we just do what young people need. Sometimes it’s a programme, sometimes it’s advice, sometimes it’s a space where you can take your mind off things. War is present in our reality, but we do not allow it to determine our actions. That is why we work every day – we want young people to feel stability at least through this. If we can support even ten people a day, that is already important. For us, it is not about strength or endurance. It is about humanity.”
Lviv’s young people: agency beyond the war
Despite the war, the city did not shut down emotionally or functionally. On the contrary, young people looked for ways to act. They created new spaces for meetings, learning, volunteering, and mental and emotional support. They formed teams that helped others feel not only safe but also a sense of belonging.
One example that really illustrates this was a citywide initiative to create a continuous calendar of opportunities for young people throughout the year, which ensured the engagement, support, and connection of young people despite the war. The Youth Capital team in Lviv collaborated with dozens of organisations to launch initiatives that catered to different interests and needs: volunteer programmes; flagship events that brought together young people for dialogue and learning; and a Youth Day, a special day dedicated to the very young people running and participating in all these events.
One young volunteer describes that: “Almost every month there was something that reminded me that I was part of a community”.
Through this series of initiatives, Lviv’s team provided young people with opportunities to find their place even when the world becomes unpredictable.
How? “At some point, we stopped looking at our work as a set of tasks. That’s when everything became much simpler and at the same time much deeper” shares Oleh Malets, head of the TVORY! network and Lviv - European Youth Capital. “One guy came up to me one day and said that he was just looking for a place to sit and feel that life goes on,” Oleh continues. That’s when he realised: “our youth spaces, events and festivals exist precisely to provide a sense of support. When young people know that there is a place where they are welcome, they are no longer alone in their experiences,” he concludes.
Lviv’s work was not separate from the war. It was a response to it. Young people shaped the resilience of the city and the democratic future of their country, remaining visible. Their voice travelled across borders, ensuring that the city’s experience and resilience became part of a broader European understanding.
What we witnessed: The European Youth Forum’s perspective
What we saw through our outsider eyes, however briefly, was a level of professionalism and dedication that felt extraordinary, especially under the current circumstances, that we can’t even start to comprehend. Everything was carried out as if it were a normal Youth Capital year, even though nothing about life in Ukraine is “normal.” The uncertainty that surrounds each day, such as checking if everyone is “still alive,” has become a routine reality, we’re told by a person residing in Kyiv – a city more frequently targeted by air strikes. And yet they continue, they move, they organise, they participate – even though it’s not easy.
For us, as visitors, the contrast was difficult to ignore. We felt like tourists passing through a reality that wasn’t ours. There were air alerts and a kind of lingering anxiety, but we knew that in just a couple of days we would leave that behind. This privilege really sharpened our awareness of what young people in Lviv navigate daily. We were advised that while we’re there we should take care of “protecting the mind,” distracting ourselves from the reality of war. A book was grabbed on the way to the shelter, a charged power bank and a snack on stand-by for the “just in case.” These small rituals, we were told, serve as comfort blankets when the world becomes unpredictable.
During an air alert that interrupted the Award Ceremony for announcing the European Youth Capital 2028 (the very reason that brought us to Lviv in the first place), it was Lviv’s team that approached us first. Being aware of the mental impact, they asked us if we wanted to share how we felt. That’s real support in action. And that moment captured more about this year than any official report ever could. “Feel free to text if you need to,” someone from Lviv’s team told us, a simple sentence that revealed a reality where support networks blur the line between work and life. That felt genuine and profoundly human.
Being there mattered, because presence is the most tangible form of solidarity we can offer. Leaving Lviv was emotional. What stayed with us? A community caring for each other, young people truly taking the lead and working together with decision-makers and other generations to build spaces not just for them, but for everyone, to be at ease and belong.
Shared European values
Lviv’s year as European Youth Capital shows that participation is not a privilege of peaceful times: it is a tool of dignity and hope that doesn’t only survive in ideal conditions. Everything that Lviv’s team managed to accomplish, from the "neighbourhood" youth centres, to the support they sent to those at the front line, to the very impressive festivals they organised, the values that the Youth Capital title hopes to spread across Europe were always reflected. By showing that this is possible, despite things being undeniably not easy, the Lviv Youth Capital has shown us that whatever the circumstances, there are ways to implement real youth participation and stand up for democracy.
A year that will remain a testament
Lviv’s year as European Youth Capital will not end with the calendar year. It will live on in every young person who found belonging, in every volunteer who stepped forward, in every shelter conversation, and in every programme that reminded someone that life – even under these terms – can move, grow, and matter. This city and its young residents held two truths at once that war changes everything, and that young people are capable of creating a new fabric of life within this change.
As Lviv concludes its journey, we carry not only gratitude, but clarity. Youth work can hold steady amid instability. Solidarity can be practiced in the smallest gestures. Courage can speak in many voices.
Thank you, Lviv – for your strength, generosity and humanity, and for showing Europe what youth participation looks like when the world is at its hardest. This year will stay with us.
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