Caring to Survive

Millions of Ukrainians with disabilities are living through the war with far too little attention from researchers and policymakers. A new collaborative project, Caring to Survive, sets out to change that by documenting the everyday experiences of people with disabilities and using its findings to reshape how the world responds to disability in conflict zones.

The 30-month UKRI-funded project is led by Edinburgh Napier University in partnership with People’s Palace Projects (PPP) at Queen Mary University of London, the National Assembly of People with Disabilities of Ukraine (NAPDU), and the Institute of Sociology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

“The war in Ukraine has exposed just how quickly care systems can collapse, and how resourcefully communities of persons with disabilities respond when they do,” said Dr Kiril Sharapov, Principal Investigator and Associate Professor in Forced Migration at Edinburgh Napier University. “At a time when disability is too often reduced to vulnerability in humanitarian responses, this research centres persons with disabilities as creative agents of change.”

The project’s premise is that persons with disabilities in Ukraine have not been passive victims. In the absence of adequate state support — evacuation corridors that failed wheelchair users, shelters without adaptations, social services overwhelmed by displacement — communities have improvised. Informal care networks have formed around everyday practices. It is these overlooked acts of mutual support that Caring to Survive will document, elevate, and learn from.

PPP leads the project’s arts-based research methodology with Clod Ensemble and Graeae Theatre Company. The approach, at the centre of the Caring to Survive project, reaches experiences that conventional research misses.

“This research will take place in the heart of a war zone, focusing on those who are most forgotten in the chaos of conflict,” said Professor Paul Heritage, Founder and Director of People’s Palace Projects. “Our arts-driven approach isn’t just about creativity or academic study: it’s a lifeline, connecting community networks forged in adversity”

Working directly with communities across five Ukrainian cities, Kyiv, Odesa, Dnipro, Vinnytsia and Cherkasy, PPP will train ten Ukrainian artists, two from each city, in arts-based research methods. Those artists will then lead creative workshops and one-to-one sessions with persons with disabilities in their homes, producing audio and video testimonies, commissioned artworks, scholarly publications, and policy briefings, all designed to inform humanitarian responses in Ukraine and beyond.

Using arts-based and social science methodologies, the project will document the informal care networks that persons with disabilities have built for themselves during the war: everyday practices such as cooking, gardening, singing and storytelling, what the research team calls the “aesthetics of care.”

Before the invasion, Ukraine had approximately 2.7 million people registered as living with a disability. That figure has risen sharply: according to the European Disability Forum, citing Ukraine’s Ministry of Social Policy, approximately 3.4 million people in Ukraine now live with disabilities, with estimates indicating this could reach five million due to the war’s ongoing impact. In 2023 alone, the Medical and Social Expert Commission issued 145,000 new disability certifications, primarily for war-related injuries, and the Ministry of Health estimates that by mid-2024, 100,000 amputations had been performed as a direct result of the war in a country now classified as the most heavily mined on the planet.

“The war in Ukraine has radically changed the lives of millions and significantly increased the number of people with disabilities,” said Viktoriia Nazarenko, Secretary General of the NAPDU. “Yet, at the same time, it has revealed the incredible strength of mutual support within communities. Persons with disabilities, their families, and civil society organisations are uniting to help one another, find solutions, and build care networks even under the most difficult conditions. It is this experience of solidarity and resilience that is vital to research and making visible.”