Official Public Launch: October 1, 2026

We are quietly accepting early support now.

Early donations will give this campaign a running start and help us reach our first critical milestone: $20,000 raised by the community. Reaching that milestone will release a secured $20,000 matching gift from an anonymous donor, bringing the campaign to $40,000, which means only $10,000 more is required to fund the first GRIT Ukraine pilot.

Help Ukrainian Youth Reconnect Through Story, Choice, and Community

Ukrainian families have been living within the immediate violence of war. Others have had to leave behind homes, schools, and people they love. Even after reaching safety, the ground can still feel unsteady.

Parents are trying to build a life in a new country while carrying concern for the one they left. Children and teenagers are learning how to belong again while the adults around them are still trying to catch their breath after so much upheaval.

GRIT creates a structured space where young people can reconnect with others, practice making choices, and rediscover their capacity to shape what happens next.

GRIT stands for Games for Resilience and Interactive Transformation. It is a culturally grounded, trauma-informed program developed by Cultura Connector, a U.S.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

The first GRIT Ukraine pilot will prepare Ukrainian facilitators to lead a 12-week program with Ukrainian young people living in Poland. Each session will use guided storytelling, live-action role-playing, and facilitated reflection to strengthen resilience, communication, emotional awareness, problem-solving, and connection.

What Is Live-Action Role-Playing?

Live-action role-playing, often called larp, is a form of collaborative storytelling. Participants step into fictional roles and make decisions as their characters within a guided story.

There is no stage or audience. A trained facilitator introduces a situation or challenge, and the participants decide how their characters will respond. They may need to solve a problem together, negotiate a disagreement, protect their community, ask for help, or choose what kind of leader they want to become.

The story gives participants a little distance from their everyday experiences. A young person may find it easier to explore courage, fear, trust, grief, or hope through a fictional character. The choices still belong to the participant, and the lessons can carry into life beyond the game.

Every GRIT session ends with a facilitated debrief. Participants step out of their characters and talk about what happened, how they made decisions, what they noticed about their character or themselves, and what they may want to carry forward.

The experience is human-led, collaborative, and screen-free.

Why Role-Playing?

Trauma can narrow a person’s sense of possibility. When much of life has been shaped by danger, loss, or uncertainty, planning for the future can feel difficult. Trust may come slowly and making choices can feel risky. Even imagining a different outcome may require practice.

A role-playing story gives young people a brave place to rehearse those abilities.

Within an adventure, participants can:

Practice making decisions and experiencing their consequences
Work with others toward a shared goal
Ask for help and offer help to someone else
Explore different ways to respond to conflict
Recognize personal strengths
Practice emotional regulation
Experience themselves as capable of influencing what happens next

These experiences are then explored through the debrief, where the facilitator helps participants connect insights from the story with their lives and relationships.

GRIT is designed for young people experiencing mild to moderate emotional distress related to war, displacement, loss, or major disruption. Clinical treatment remains the responsibility of licensed professionals. Participants needing a higher level of care will be connected with qualified services through established referral pathways.

The Ukraine Pilot Plan

The $50,000 pilot will support one complete three-month GRIT cycle.

1. Adapt the program with Ukrainian cultural advisors

Ukrainian advisors will co-create the stories, provide the language, consult on safety practices, and decide on debrief questions. Their insight will help ensure that the experience reflects Ukrainian identity, values, humor, communication styles, and lived realities.

Local cultural leadership is central to GRIT. Communities help determine what their stories should explore and how the program should be delivered.

2. Recruit and prepare Ukrainian facilitators

Facilitators will complete extensive preparation in the GRIT framework, trauma-informed facilitation, safety and consent, adventure design, group management, and debriefing.

The first facilitator cohort will be bilingual in Ukrainian and English so they can participate fully in the initial training and help prepare future Ukrainian-language materials. Later cohorts can be for facilitators who only speak the Ukrainian language.

3. Establish safety and professional support

Ukrainian mental health professionals will help guide participant screening, facilitator boundaries, referral procedures, and escalation protocols.

Facilitators will learn how to recognize distress, pause an activity, respond appropriately, document concerns, and seek professional support. They will have ongoing access to experienced program leaders and mental health advisors throughout the pilot.

4. Run 12 weekly sessions

Young people will participate in one two-hour session each week for 12 weeks. Every session will include preparation and safety framing, a collaborative adventure, and a structured debrief.

The stories will be co-developed with Ukrainian cultural input and adjusted in response to what facilitators and participants learn along the way.

5. Document what we learn

The pilot will gather anonymized feedback from participants, facilitators, cultural advisors, and mental health professionals. The research team will examine participation, safety, facilitator readiness, participant experience, and early indications of change.

The results will guide improvements before a larger study and help future funders understand what responsible expansion would require.

The Partnerships Taking Shape

Cultura Connector is a U.S.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit that develops culturally grounded programs designed to strengthen resilience, connection, and personal agency. Cultura Connector' mission is to improve the collective healing and revitalization of cultures at risk as well as the accurate representation of global cultures, subcultures, identities, and lived experiences and their portrayal in media, arts, entertainment, education.

GRIT is supported by an international network of advisors whose experience spans transformative game design, mental health, education, research, technology, storytelling, and international development. Collectively, our advisors bring professional experience with or within Harvard University, Uppsala University, the United Nations, and the World Bank. Others have worked with Disney, LEGO, Accenture, Discord, and Sesame Workshop (makers of Sesame Street). Their perspectives help guide our approach to child development, story design, facilitation, safety, research, and responsible expansion.

For the Ukraine pilot, this broader experience will support local Ukrainian leadership. However, the Ukrainian cultural advisors, facilitators, and mental health professionals will have the final say in determining how the stories are adapted, how safety practices are applied, and how the program is delivered.

We are developing a proposed partnership with Europe4Youth, a youth organization based in Poland with strong ties to Ukrainian communities. Europe4Youth is a non-profit, non-governmental organization dedicated to empowering young people and fostering their growth in various aspects of life. They create opportunities for education, personal development, and civic participation, contributing to a vibrant and democratic civil society at the local, national, and European levels. Their vision is a European civil society where young people are active, self-aware, and engaged in shaping political, social, and cultural life at all levels.

Under the proposed partnership, Europe4Youth would help recruit Ukrainian facilitators, mental health professionals, and participants. The organization has also offered access to a 35-bed community center and one week of room and board for trainers, facilitators, and psychologists during the in-person preparation period. Final roles will be established through a formal partnership agreement.

We are also in active discussions with a university research team in Kyiv about a possible role in evaluation. Reaching the $150,000 research stretch goal would help support the proposed partnership, including research ethics guidance, survey and data-collection design, data analysis, and reporting.

A university partnership would bring culturally informed research leadership and help establish a foundation for future independent study.

These partnerships are currently being developed and remain subject to final agreements, research approvals, and funding.

Building the Evidence Others Have Asked to See

In 2025, Cultura Connector founder and Executive Director Meghan Gardner was invited as a guest speaker at the 80th United Nations General Assembly, where she addressed the use of games as a mental health intervention.

The GRIT team has also been in discussion with World Bank representatives about the potential of culturally grounded, community-led mental health programs. Their guidance has been clear: complete the pilot, document the results, and return with evidence that can be reviewed.

Successful completion of this pilot would allow GRIT to be considered for a possible future endorsement. Any endorsement would depend upon the completed program, its results, and further World Bank review.

That makes this first pilot especially important. It will serve Ukrainian young people now while helping us build the operational experience and evidence needed to pursue larger institutional support.

How the $50,000 Goal Works

First milestone: $20,000 from the community

When early supporters and public donors collectively contribute $20,000, a secured anonymous donor will release a matching gift of $20,000.

Match released: $40,000 reached

The community contributions and anonymous match will bring the campaign total to $40,000.

$20,000 from the community + $20,000 match = $40,000

Final milestone: $10,000 more to fund the pilot

Once the match is released, we will need to raise another $10,000 to reach our $50,000 goal and fully fund the first three-month GRIT program for Ukrainian refugee children in Poland.

$20,000 from the community + $20,000 match + $10,000 final push = $50,000 pilot

What the Pilot Budget Supports

The working $50,000 budget includes:

Ukrainian cultural adaptation and translation
Facilitator recruitment, preparation, and stipends
Trauma-informed facilitation training
Mental health consultation and safety planning
Participant screening and referral systems
In-person training and program delivery
Adventure and debrief development
Local coordination and participant support
Data collection, documentation, and reporting
Program management and contingency planning

The final distribution among these categories will reflect the completed partner agreements, local costs, participant numbers, and research requirements. We will share updates as those details are confirmed.

What Happens If We Keep Going?

The first $50,000 funds a complete three-month pilot. Greater momentum will give the Ukrainian team more time to practice, improve the program, serve additional young people, and build stronger evidence.

$50,000: Three-month pilot
Cultural adaptation, facilitator preparation, safety systems, one 12-week participant cycle, and initial reporting.
$70,000: Six months of programming
A second cycle allows facilitators to apply what they learned, strengthen delivery, and serve another group of young people.
$90,000: Nine months of programming
A third cycle supports continued improvement, broader participation, and more consistent outcome tracking.
$120,000: A complete first year
A full year creates greater continuity for facilitators, partners, mental health advisors, and participating communities.
$150,000: Research and evaluation stretch goal
This level would support the proposed university research partnership, expanded outcome measurement, research ethics planning, data analysis, and more substantial reporting.
$200,000: Expanded implementation and scale readiness
This level strengthens evaluation, contingency funding, training documentation, donor reporting, and the systems needed to prepare GRIT for responsible expansion.

Each goal builds upon the work made possible by the one before it. We will update the public campaign goal as milestones are reached so supporters can see exactly what the next stage makes possible.

This Pilot Is the Beginning of a Larger Movement

GRIT is being built around a simple idea: communities should have the tools and training to create their own culturally meaningful paths toward resilience.

A global framework can provide safety practices, facilitator training, and a shared structure. Local people provide the language, stories, relationships, and cultural knowledge that give the program meaning.

The long-term goal is a growing network of locally led GRIT programs. Facilitators and cultural advisors will be able to learn from one another while each community retains ownership of its own stories and adaptations.

A successful Ukraine pilot will help us create the training, documentation, safety systems, and evidence needed to bring GRIT to other communities affected by war, displacement, climate disasters, and collective loss.

That movement begins with one well-supported pilot.

You Can Help Us Begin

Our official public launch is October 1, 2026 and ends October 31, 2026 at 8pm EDT. Early support is open now.

An early donation will help us begin the campaign with momentum and move closer to the first $30,000 that releases the anonymous $20,000 match and fully funds the pilot.

You can also help by:

Sharing this campaign with friends, colleagues, and community groups
Creating a personal peer-to-peer fundraising page
Inviting an organization to become a campaign partner
Connecting us with Ukrainian cultural advisors or mental health professionals
Introducing GRIT to funders interested in youth, mental health, Ukraine, community resilience, or innovative approaches to recovery

Supporters from every background are welcome. Every donation, personal introduction, and shared post helps build the community around this work.

Together, we can give Ukrainian facilitators the tools to create safe, culturally grounded adventures where young people can reconnect, build resilience, and shape their futures.

Learn more about GRIT and Cultura Connector.

GRIT Ukraine: Play for Resilience

Help Ukrainian facilitators create safe, culturally grounded adventures where young people can reconnect, build resilience, and imagine a future shaped by their own choices.

Team Members