Ivano-Frankivsk is very hospitable. The Journalist Solidarity Center of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU) has given me many good friends, but my biggest dream is to return to my native Kharkiv.
Vitalina Zinkivska, a leading specialist in the content quality monitoring department of the National Public Television and Radio Company of Ukraine, who has been living in Ivano-Frankivsk since the beginning of April 2022, admitted these hopes in a comment to Ivano-Frankivsk journalists.
The journalist lived under shelling for 45 days in Kharkiv. So, probably, it could have continued until the very victory, if the journalist’s health had not failed due to constant stress. She had a heart attack, and the ambulance couldn’t come as doctors were saving the wounded around the clock after endless shelling. The journalist understood: it’s time to take care of her own life.
“I thought: suddenly something will happen to me in Kharkiv, I will create a very big problem for my children. And my husband and I went to Ivano-Frankivsk to visit our son at the beginning of April,” recalls Vitalina.
Getting used to a new city was difficult. Every loud sound was perceived as enemy shelling. Her favorite journalist work and volunteering, which she took up almost from the first days of the move, calmed her down.
“This case is not new for me, because I started helping the Armed Forces of Ukraine in 2014, and in the first days of the full-scale invasion, I started volunteering: weaving camouflage nets, sorting humanitarian aid for the fighters. So, in Ivano-Frankivsk, I could no longer be aloof either. I found local volunteers to help there. I have been buying the necessary materials for camouflage nets, weaving them almost since I arrived in the Prykarpattia Region…”
Recently, Vitalina Zinkivska had an anniversary. In memory of the Journalist Solidarity Center and Ivano-Frankivsk, she was presented with a small gift at the Center for Journalism.
As earlier reported, the Journalist Solidarity Centers are an initiative of the NUJU implemented with the support of the International and European Federations of Journalists, as well as UNESCO. They are designed to help media representatives working in Ukraine during the war. The centers operate in Kyiv, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro and provide journalists with organizational, technical, legal, psychological, and other types of assistance.
Call the Journalist Solidarity Center in Ivano-Frankivsk: 066 677 0726 (Viktoria Plakhta, a coordinator of the Ivano-Frankivsk Center), address: 25, Sichovykh Striltsiv Street.
NUJU information service
