To what extent are Ukrainian youth involved in volunteering and public activity in general? What areas are she most interested in and what are the barriers to participation?

Fall 2025 Rating Group (Sociological group “Rating”) asked about this more than 2 thousand Ukrainians aged 14-35 in Ukraine (as well as 600 representatives of Ukrainian youth in the countries of the European Union). Below are key findings in the context of civic participation of young people in Ukraine.

These findings are part of a large combined study “Impact of War on Youth in Ukraine 2025”, conducted by the Rating Group on the initiative of the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Ukraine and the support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Ukraine and the Government of Denmark. The research project demonstrates how Ukrainian youth feel and change during a full-scale war.

Level of involvement in volunteering

• More than half of young people in Ukraine have experience of volunteering during a full-scale invasion (53%): 27% volunteered before the full-scale invasion and continued after it, while 26% joined just after February 24, 2022.
• Most often, young people in Ukraine who have volunteered are involved on their own initiative (55%), through relatives, friends and acquaintances (42%) or through an educational institution (11%).
• We also asked young people who not are engaged in volunteering, about barriers to participation. Most often in the list denote lack of free time (56%), skills and experience (24%) information (14%), interest or motivation (13%), and in some cases distrust of initiatives (8%).

The level of involvement in public activity

• The vast majority of young people in Ukraine (about 80%) trust public and volunteer associations. At the same time, the indicator of personal participation in civil society institutions is divided roughly in half: 48% of young people directly noted that they had not participated in the last 12 months at the time of the survey.
• 21% of young people participated in school or student self-government, 13-15% - in sports or volunteer organizations, about 10% - in educational, cultural, scientific or charitable organizations.
• 8% of young people said they would most like to work in the public sector.
• Three quarters of young respondents (77%) are ready to participate in community recovery processes. However, more than half (54%) do not feel able to personally influence changes in the community, 44% do.
• Most often, young people who do not feel the levers of influence in the life of the community explain this by lack of knowledge and experience (33%), the idea that their opinion will not change anything (30%), a lack of understanding of how they can influence (30%), lack of visible examples of positive change (16%), distrust of decision-making processes (14%).

Youth centers

• A relative majority of young people in Ukraine state that there is a youth center in their community (45%), whereas a third say that there is no such center in the community, and another 19% answered “it is difficult to answer”.
• Among those young people who noted the presence of a youth center in the community, 17% visit the centers once a month or more often.
• In general, almost half of young people visit youth centers at least occasionally.

Areas of activity of interest to young people

• The most interest among young people is the participation formats related to development and gaining new experiences: for example, traineeships (27%) and youth exchanges within Ukraine (25%).
• In addition, 20% of young people are interested in art and cultural projects, 18% - public events (festivals, forums), 18 - educational events (trainings, etc.), 16% - discussion clubs and debates.

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Rating Group is one of the largest research institutions in Ukraine, which has been on the market since 2008. The company is registered in Ukraine and has significant experience in conducting sociological surveys in Ukraine and abroad. The group includes: Sociological Group Rating, Research Lab Rating Lab, Rating Online platform and Rating Call Center.