Iryna Soloshenko - Volunteer, Project leader

With two degrees in law and speech therapy, as well as a nursing diploma, Iryna couldn't just sit back and watch when the Maidan protests started. To be honest, she never had any doubts about her place in this story.

“My nursing diploma had been lying around at home for a long time. I realized that there was no point in waiting. So I went to Maidan as a nurse. On January 24, I was already on duty at the Trade Union House. I assisted with operations, procedures, everything.”

Maidan became a turning point in Iryna's life, dividing it into the period before December 22, 2013, and what happened after that and continues to this day. The first wounded, the first experience of providing first aid in extreme conditions, the first resuscitations on the street with wooden shields on February 20 near the October Palace. And the first shots fired at medics.

In the spring of 2014, Iryna went to the military registration and enlistment office with the intention of enlisting in the military as a medic, but at that time women were not being drafted into the army. Iryna found another way and went to a military hospital as a volunteer. There she met her future husband.

Soon, Iryna's daily routine consisted of trips to the ATO and OOS, where she and Serhiy took turns going so that they would not be in the combat zone at the same time and leave their younger daughter without both parents.

For the first four months after the full-scale invasion began on February 24, 2022, Iryna, her husband, and numerous colleagues lived in the reception area of the military hospital so that they could provide immediate assistance to wounded soldiers.
“When the fighting was going on near Kyiv, our reception center provided assistance and stabilized the wounded.”

Today, Iryna is involved in helping to evacuate wounded soldiers and, sometimes without sleep, works through the night with hospital staff to do everything possible to ease their suffering.