EU4Youth: youth-driven video series on accessibility and inclusion

The National Ukrainian Youth Association has developed a video series dedicated to increasing awareness about accessible environments, inclusivity and barrier-free youth spaces in Ukraine. The initiative was supported by the ‘EU4Youth: youth engagement and empowerment’ project, and filmed throughout August-November.

The video series demonstrates why accessibility is not an optional extra but an essential element of modern democratic societies. Each episode shows how youth centres, coworking spaces, libraries, and social businesses are already integrating inclusive approaches.

The content also helps viewers understand how to prepare documentation for infrastructure adaptation in line with national accessibility standards, what legal requirements exist, and how cooperation with local authorities can accelerate improvements.

The videos are available on YouTube and include simultaneous sign-language translation.

So far, two out of five planned episodes have been released.

The first episode, filmed in Ternopil, explores what real accessibility means and why it begins with respect for every individual rather than with physical ramps. Using the example of the inclusive space ‘Liteplo’, the speakers discuss how personal experience can drive community-level change, how accessible spaces can be created step by step, and why inclusivity is an essential part of youth policy that helps transform cities.

The second episode, filmed in Lviv, focuses on what human-centred space looks like in practice. The team visited the coworking space Nat and Radio SKOVORODA to see how the principle “people at the centre” is applied in modern working and media spaces. The episode reveals which barriers often remain invisible and how young people can help to remove them in their communities.

The video series has been developed by the National Ukrainian Youth Association with the support of the ‘EU4Youth: youth engagement and empowerment’ project, co-funded by the European Union and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), and implemented by GIZ.