The project “I am Beautiful!” started in August 2016. At that time, the group was consisted only of clients of the Voznesenovsky branch of the day care centre of the Zaporizhzhya social services. To lead the was a new experience for staff of the “Florence Centre”. Our goal to help women over 60 to improve self-esteem, ruined stereotypes about the retirement age and bring new colors into their lives/d not only to realize the idea, but also to make the project very popular.

“When we started working on the project,” says Lyudmila Romanenkova, director of NGO Florence, “we wanted to conduct several classes on the peculiarities of clothing and makeup in old age. We made a decision to take women to the professional salon to cut their hair. Unfortunately, retiring persons become less important both for themselves and for society. We expected to improve the mood of the participants, to teach them to dress properly, because Ukrainian women over 50 often do not pay attention on it. ”

After completing the work with the first group of the project “I Am Beautiful!”, we observed that enjoyed it so much! They realized that first they are women and only then wives, mothers and grandmothers!

Inspired by this result, the specialists of our Centre began to work with the next group. When the three-month course was in full swing, the organization began to receive calls asking to sign up to participate in the next group. The high significance of the project for the society was emphasized by the fact that the daughters and granddaughters of women of retirement age began to contact us. “Put my mom into your waiting list! I want you to help her! ”- this is how most of the requests began.

When we sum up the work with the third group of participants, we noted that the eyes of each woman sparkled in a special way. They improve their self-esteem, received a sufficient amount of information about behavior in conflict situations, about relationships with relatives!

When we had been working with the fourth group, it turned out that all the participants are doing a lot for society: they help the front - bake bread and collect things for the soldiers; help in hospitals, shelters and boarding schools.

Thanks to the help of specialists from the Estetic Education training center, each woman managed to choose exactly that haircut, hair color and makeup, which not only greatly improved their appearance, but also made others appreciate them!

A large team of professionals, like psychologists, colorists, makeup artists, hairdressers, and even photographers worked with each group from the project “I am beautiful!”. According to the employees affirms, the work on the project brought them not only new experience, but, perhaps, even more pleasure than to the participants. The realization that thanks to you, people got joy, could take a fresh look at their lives, and they just wanted to live, inspires us!

There are some statements of the participants from the project “I am Beautiful!”:

“I have never done a makeup – now I do it every day! After this project, I want to change something in my life. Sitting in the salon, I looked at myself differently. It turns out that you can look like a woman at that age!”

“I am a migrant from Donbas. In the project, I found comfort and home warmth. They helped me to look at myself differently. Now, before going out, I look in the mirror. I began to use cosmetics and buy jewellery. The project helped me to understand that because of my homework, I became aggressive, angry and sarcastic. I reviewed all this. I changed the way I talk, communication style. Thanks to this, positive changes began to occur in my family. Thank you so much for this! This is what I missed. ”

“Thanks to participation in the project, I become more restrained. Previously, I could not listen to people, but now I look after myself, I do not do not interrupt people. I became beautiful, elegant and beloved! Son started kissing me! ”

NGO “Florence” expresses gratitude to everyone who gave life to the project “I Am Beautiful!”: Zaporizhzhya territorial center of social services, the Mennonite family home, the training centre Estetic Education, photographers Galina Melnikova and Elena Zavyalova-Prjadun, Zaporizhzhya beauty college of fashion and style.

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