Start and Improve Your Business - Success Stories 2025
“For me, metal is my life”: rebuilding a business through SIYB in Ukraine
After displacement caused by the war, metal craftswoman Viktoriia Tabachna rebuilt and expanded her enterprise, Metal Comfort of Life, with support from ILO’s SIYB training, gaining the skills and confidence to grow her business sustainably.
15 January 2026
Poltava, Ukraine (ILO News) - When war forced Viktoriia Tabachna, a metal craftswoman from Kharkiv, to relocate to the Poltava region, her workshop was destroyed and her future uncertain. “At first, when I arrived, I had absolutely no thoughts about recovery.
There was only one thought — to survive,” she recalls.
Viktoriia set up a temporary workshop in a rented garage and managed to retrieve some surviving equipment from Kharkiv. A turning point came when former clients began calling to ask if she was working again. “Somehow the thoughts themselves, and some kind of strength came from somewhere,” she says. Completing her first order brought renewed confidence: “It was such a joy as a child’s that I did something and started working.”
To rebuild more sustainably, Viktoriia joined the ILO Start Your Business (SIYB) training in Poltava. “The training was very interesting. Everything was served in such an easy form,” she explains. “I was interested in understanding all these cost points.” The training gave her the confidence to apply for grant support from the ILO and partners.
With the grant, she purchased essential equipment — including a professional welding table, a sheet-bending machine and a compressor. Today, her enterprise Metal Comfort of Life operates in the Poltava region and has partially restored production in Kharkiv. Her greatest pride are large-scale projects for her hometown — giant festive sculptures such as a three-meter New Year's ball, a bear, a deer, and a grand piano. "I am very proud of these orders. And you put your soul there, because it is for your hometown," Viktoriia shares.
Victoria continues to develop her workshop further, and now also employs other women seasonally, with flexible schedules for mothers. The idea to develop this direction was born spontaneously when the mothers of her daughter's friends began to show interest in working with tools. Additionally, the workshop has introduced environmentally responsible practices, including metal recycling and energy-efficient production.
Her message to other entrepreneurs rebuilding after loss is clear:
If this is a business that you want to do, it gives pleasure and you enjoy it, then I would advise you to try to move it a little by little, restore it.
Viktoriia Tabachna
