photo: UAKidsToday
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Volunteers Artem and Anastasia Bykovets have launched a social project UAKidsToday to help children affected by the war. The project was created after Russia attacked Ukraine on February 24, which made the world and the reality of children change drastically. In particular, they have lost the opportunity to live their full lives and do not understand what is happening, as stated on the website of the project.
Artem and Anastasia, who are parents of two-year-old Sasha and six-year-old Sofia, decided to collect drawings in a large gallery on the website to show the world what Russia is doing with the next generation of Ukrainians. The project’s goal is to show how children cannot walk quietly in the park or on the playground now, do not visit kindergarten, school and do not see teachers and friends, often spend nights in dark basements and refugee centres with hundreds of strangers instead of their own beds, do not have favourite toys, blankets and pillows.
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According to the initiators of the project, children’s drawings on social media pages will allow them to distract from what is happening around, feel part of a large team of artists from all over Ukraine, and will also help parents to spend some time with themselves and teach children to cope with their experiences by drawing.
Screenshot from the gallery
«We will show the world how our children feel it,» – Artem and Anastasia Bykovets added.
The UAKidsToday portal has the functionality to upload photos to the gallery, so that the child will be able to see that her work on the Internet is next to the works of other children and the whole world sees it.
The website also has details where you can send donations to help families with children in need.
The organizers claim that when the war is over, they will organize an exhibition and a charity auction to help talented children and their families return to normal life.
We will add that earlier, the Ukrainian Natalia Ilchyshyn and Polish Yulita Zhybort united their efforts to allow children from Ukraine in Poland to read in their native language. They are collecting children’s books in Lviv and transferring them to the Polish city of Pila, where Ukrainian children will be able to read them in 10 schools and several kindergartens.
Translated by Vitalii Holich
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Lviv Now is an English-language website for Lviv, Ukraine’s «tech-friendly cultural hub.» It is produced by Tvoe Misto («Your City») media-hub, which also hosts regular problem-solving public forums to benefit the city and its people.