How to create happiness for journalists with your own hands: master class in Zaporizhzhia

The first master class at the Zaporizhzhia JSC of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU) was held by a radio journalist from Enerhodar, Alla Shamrai. Her authorial style can already be recognized at first glance: at the charity auction Helping Hand held in June, her three large rag dolls [motanka in Ukrainian] called Travnytsia, Povitrulia, and Enerhynia were the first to be bought. The proceeds were directed to support injured journalists and the families of the deceased.

Alla Shamrai already has experience in conducting ethnological art classes – she taught fellow countrymen in the Enerhodar Hub and students at the Zaporizhzhia Polytechnic Institute to make rag dolls. Now, she has started working with our journalist community. Among her students are also male media workers.

Zaporizhzhia media workers have recently become famous not only as professionals working in the gray zone, on front-line territories, at the sites of shelling and other dangerous spots, but also as well-known puppeteers who create incredible dolls. Today, not only in Ukraine, but also among our colleagues abroad, we have wonderful spinning tops, motankas, berehynias [dolls believed to be guardian angels], and angels that protect journalists when performing difficult tasks. Well, there is nothing to say about the relaxation effect.

Art therapy helps journalists from the occupied territories, who are united in the JSC. Many coaches in various fields of folk arts came to us. And now the time has come when our talented media workers themselves have become real masters and are now teaching colleagues.

The network of Journalists’ Solidarity Centers is an initiative of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, implemented in collaboration with the International and European Federations of Journalists and UNESCO and with the support of the People of Japan. Our primary goal is to assist media professionals working in Ukraine during the war. The Centers are active in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Lviv, and Ivano-Frankivsk. The project is part of UNESCO’s broader efforts to support the Safety of Journalists and Freedom of Expression in Ukraine.

Contact the Zaporizhzhia JSC at 096 277 5352 (Nataliya Kuzmenko and Valentyna Manzhura, the coordinators of the Zaporizhzhia JSC). The Center’s address is 15 Sobornyi Avenue.

Nataliya Vadymova

Photo by Svitlana Kostiiuk and Nataliya Kuzmenko