Ivanna Skyba-Yakubowa was one of the residents of the International Centre for Dialogue. Her residency lasted between 16 February to 13 March 2024.
Iwanna is a manager of culture projects and a co-founder of Bagels and Letters agency. Since 2013 she has been working on different projects focused on culture, education, health care transformation and human rights. As a lecturer, she conducts the classes on ‘Social Communication in Culture at the Faculty of Culture of the Catholic University of Ukraine.
Ivanna is a volunteer of the charity organization Kharkiv with You which supports the military personnel, hospitals and civilians who have been suffering from the Russian invasion.
During her residency in Krasnogruda, Ivanna was working on her first poetry book. It will include pieces written before and after the Russian invasion. As it was put by her, the poems from the books remind her of the diary written by a woman who is still in love despite the fact that the world around is falling apart and our everyday duty is to keep it in unity.
Ivanna was also working on the volume of prose. As it has been explained by her, this book will not be the book about the war. Rather it will tell a story of her as a woman who is celebrating her 40th birthday during the wartime when people witness the end of time and try to understand how to live on. It will also be a story about her friends for whom the war is a part of the identity; and about her grandmothers and great grandmothers whose life stories are strictly connected with the Ukrainian tragedies of the 20th century such as the Famines of 1932-1933 and 1946 – 1947.