somatic art therapy — for ukrainian women rebuilding life abroad
Before a new life
can be built —
the Ground must be felt again.
can be built —
the Ground must be felt again.
A trauma-informed, body-oriented art therapy group for Ukrainian women starting over in a new country. Small. Safe. Facilitated in Russian language by Marka Kondrateva, a somatic art therapist with experience in trauma-informed, body-oriented group facilitation.
Important — this is a therapeutic support group, not psychiatric or medical treatment. It runs alongside, never instead of, professional mental health care. Participants in acute crisis are referred to appropriate services before joining.
- Why this group exists
Displacement doesn't only take a home. It takes the ground under the feet.
War and forced departure interrupt something more basic than routine — the felt sense of being safe inside one's own body. Hypervigilance replaces rest. Providing for others replaces feeling. Many capable, resourceful women arrive in a new country carrying the practical tasks of survival perfectly — and quietly losing their relationship to their own Body, their own worth, their own voice.
The Pas
The Pas
- The Past
What was takenHome. Certainty. Safety in the body. The right to simply not think about survival. Often, the ability to tell one's own story without it being reduced to "refugee." - The Present
What survival costsDisconnection from the body. Numbness or constant alert. Emotions held silent so as not to burden anyone. Self-worth quietly eroded by dependency, paperwork, and starting from zero. - The Future
What becomes possibleA woman grounded enough in her own Body to trust her own judgment again. Motivated by a vision she can see, not only by what she is fleeing. Part of a community, not alone in it.
- The method
Somatic Art Therapy — why the body has to lead
Talk therapy asks a woman to narrate what happened. For many, especially those still building trust in a new language and a new country, re-telling is its own burden. Body-oriented art therapy works differently — it lets what is unspeakable become visible, without asking anyone to explain it out loud.
- No re-telling requiredParticipants don't need to narrate their story to be understood. The art holds what needs holding. The group witnesses. Nobody is asked to perform their pain for the room.
- The Core comes firstIntegration doesn't begin with a plan or a CV. It begins in the body's core — in a felt sense of ground, breath, and boundary. Everything practical rebuilds faster once this is in place.
- Expression without oversharingImage, clay, and movement give a huge, silenced weight of emotion somewhere to go — anger, grief, fear — without demanding disclosure a woman isn't ready to make.
- Held by a group, not aloneSomething particular happens among women carrying a related weight, in the same room. Isolation is one of the most corrosive parts of displacement. This group interrupts it directly.
- What happens inside
A structured path — Ground, then Future
Sessions move deliberately: from safety and the body, through what has been silenced, toward a woman's own vision of what she is building next. The exact rhythm is adapted per cohort and funding cycle.
8 weeks journey
Live in Amsterdam, weekly
Russian language
Free participation.
Maximum 8 women
Russian language
Free participation.
Maximum 8 women
1 week
Breath deeper. Lungs and sorrow.
During traumatic events stress affect the way we breath. We cope, adapt, suppress our emotions and later it's became unconscious blockage. We deeply constricted and can not expand when its already safe. We start our journey with breathing and noticing our somatic space.
2 week
Heavy burden on your shoulders. Spine. Grow your wings again.
Women carry loads of responsibilities on their shoulders, as well as guilt for a safe life they have now, but many of their loved ones not. It affect everyday functioning, because how can I take more if I am already carry too much of invisible burden, Always tired, exhausted, irritated so easily. We address that hidden chronic heaviness and give more lightness and spaciousness to exhale, rest and be ready to open hand for the new possibilities available in Netherlands.
3 week
Wounded Heart. Feel Love again
Wounded Heart, cold as an ice or over protected became an obstacle, invisible boarder when it comes to establish a new relationships with a new people. Woman can not trust, can not reseave love, care, gratitude. Heart filled with sorrow, resentment, or maybe transformed in a black hole, deep empty hole what nothing could fill. We come there to come back this wounded heart and transform it into a radiating sun again.
4 week
Activate your voice. Speak your truth. Throat, silenced scream and thyroid.
How I can not ask for help, express my need, share my desires or speak a new language when I have lump in my throat, if I have invisible blockage in my neck. Women often can ask for their children or loved ones, but not for themselves. We care about female well-being. She knows how to sacrifice her health and her life, but we want her to live fully. And for that we want to hear her voice, speaking her truth. We believe that if a woman became a shining sun, all her loved-ones and all society will benefit from it.
5 week
Express your Anger. Fire trapped within.
Women have a lot of anger trapped inside and silently affecting her mental and physical health. Nobody teach women to express their anger. And during all traumatic events ukraininans experience on a long period, needs to be expressed, and now its trapped nowhere to go. Suppresed anger can leads to a sence of hopelesnes and depressive episodes. Through art therapy we give that anger a way to go. WOman can find her fire again, to clean her inner space, to cut what stops her and to use that active energy for became a leader in her commuinty. When you have embodied knowing of that you can.
6 week
Pelvic floor release. Chronic stress affects female hormonal health and we pay loving attention to the reproductive system.
Many women during stressfull periods in their life report changes in their menstrual and hormonal health. But they stay silent about this part of life. It can be taboo or covered with shame. I see evidence in my work that Abdominal cavity, uterus, ovaries can be a storage of deep grief, childhood memories, ancestoral programs, and many more. But this is a root and basement of female health and well-being. In this session we work on releasing that space and be ready to create and feel pleasure again.
7 week
Stand on your ground. Be rooted and belong to community.
After migration people experience the sence that they not belong, they were thorn out of their safe ground. And in their inner reality they stay connected to their past, this is exactly what stops them from embracing the Future and new opportunities.
Cold feets as a symptoms, sence of weaknes or frustration. Women trapped in a Fear of loosing the Past and Fear of stepping into Unknown Future. We work with that fears and grow roots again.
Cold feets as a symptoms, sence of weaknes or frustration. Women trapped in a Fear of loosing the Past and Fear of stepping into Unknown Future. We work with that fears and grow roots again.
8 week
Your Future Self. Safely embodied. Ritual with Dutch ground.
After woman explored her inner reality, feel her body again, she reconnect with her voice, values, desires, when she know who she is, she can establish a new relationships with a ground of Netherland. That serves the better integration, higher level of motivation and deep sense of meaning, new trajectory in her life to follow.
- the need
The women this program is for are not fragile. They are ready — and under-resourced.
Nearly 3,200–3,500 Ukrainian women in Amsterdam.
- Who holds this space
Marka. Group Facilitator —
Somatic Art Therapist
Somatic Art Therapist
- I am a somatic art therapist, Family Constellations facilitator, and founder of SOMARTH School, with more than ten years of work with women and their bodies. I work in Russian and English.
I have already run this work with Ukrainian women in partnership with De Regenboog. I know what the first months in a new country cost a woman's body — not in theory, in the room, week after week.
This is not about making something beautiful. It is about giving the body a way to speak what has had nowhere to go — and giving a woman back her own ground, so she can build from Vision, not from Survival alone.
- for funders & partner organisations
Post-traumatic growth begins in the body. This is where that work happens.
These are capable women — many with skills, education, and the will to contribute to their new communities. What stands between them and that contribution is not motivation. It is a nervous system still in survival mode, and a self-worth that has not yet been allowed to rebuild. This program addresses that layer directly, before employment or integration programs can fully land.
- The Past
What was takenHome. Certainty. Safety in the body. The right to simply not think about survival. Often, the ability to tell one's own story without it being reduced to "refugee." - The Present
What survival costsDisconnection from the body. Numbness or constant alert. Emotions held silent so as not to burden anyone. Self-worth quietly eroded by dependency, paperwork, and starting from zero. - The Future
What becomes possibleA woman grounded enough in her own Body to trust her own judgment again. Motivated by a vision she can see, not only by what she is fleeing. Part of a community, not alone in it.
Tell us
you're here
you're here
This form is the beginning of a conversation.
By submitting, you agree to us contacting you about this programme. We do not share your data with third parties. This form is the first step — not a commitment to join.
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