We continue our series of stories about young participants in the “Youth for the Future of Ukraine” project who, after completing training at the Summer School of Journalism and Media Work, joined the production of the video series “Ukraine’s Recovery: Directions, Priorities, Challenges.”

This time, Anastasiia Khrupchyk from the village of Sedlyshche in Volyn Region shares her vision of Ukraine’s future.

For Anastasiia, Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction should mean much more than simply rebuilding destroyed houses, roads, or cities. It is an opportunity to create a modern country where people want to live, raise their children, and build their future.

“After the war ends, we need to do more than simply rebuild cities, roads, and houses. We need to create a modern Ukraine where we want to continue living, build our future, and raise our children.”

This idea becomes the starting point for a broader discussion about what reconstruction itself should look like.

At first glance, the simplest approach would be to restore cities exactly as they were before the war: put buildings back in their former places, rebuild roads, and restore familiar infrastructure. But mechanically recreating the past does not necessarily mean restoring a comfortable way of life.

Along with buildings, we may also recreate the problems people had grown accustomed to over the years: inconvenient urban spaces, poorly designed courtyards, barriers for people with different needs and abilities, and a lack of places for communication and recreation.

That is why post-war reconstruction gives Ukraine an opportunity to ask a different question. Not only, “What used to be here?” but also, “What will the people who live here tomorrow actually need?”

People and their everyday lives should become one of the main priorities of reconstruction.

The city of the future is not only about new buildings and modern architecture. It is a space that takes into account the needs of different people: children, older people, families, and people with different abilities and needs. It means creating places where people can meet, communicate, spend time together, and feel that they are part of a community.

This approach changes the very understanding of reconstruction. It is no longer simply about restoring what has been lost but about creating an environment that is better than the one that existed before.

An important part of this process should also be the participation of the people themselves. If a space is being created for a community, that community should have the opportunity to shape what it will look like. After all, residents know best what their courtyard, street, or city lacks and which solutions can genuinely make their lives more comfortable.

In this way, reconstruction becomes not merely a technical task but a shared endeavor.

And this is where the concept of the common good comes into play. It begins when people think not only about their own convenience but also about how to create a space that works well for different people.

For Ukraine, which after the war will need not only to rebuild what has been destroyed but also to rethink its own development, this is especially important. The war has brought enormous losses, but at the same time, it has created an opportunity to look anew at how we build our cities and communities and how we shape our social relations.

Not to repeat old solutions, but to create better ones together. Not to restore the past, but to consciously choose the future – this can become one of the key principles of Ukraine’s reconstruction.

For the younger generation, this also means having the opportunity not merely to observe the recovery process but to actively participate in shaping the country in which they want to live tomorrow.

Watch Anastasiia Khrupchyk’s video from the village of Sedlyshche, Volyn Region, from the series “Ukraine’s Recovery: Directions, Priorities, Challenges.”

The project “Youth for the Future of Ukraine: Dialogue, Research, and Creative Media Work for the Consolidation of Ukrainian Society and Orthodoxy” is implemented with the support of the German Government (zivik/ifa).