Safe learning: about the condition and arrangement of shelters in educational institutions

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the air alert signal has sounded in Ukraine more than 20 thousand times. During the year of the Great War, every Ukrainian learned how scary a siren sounds, and what to do when you hear it on the streets of your city. Unfortunately, millions of Ukrainian children also learned about this.

From September 1, 2022, the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine allowed to resume the educational process in face-to-face or mixed modes, subject to compliance with all safety conditions. Including the presence of an equipped shelter capable of accommodating all students and employees during an air raid.

Before opening, each educational institution had to check and equip the premises according to the requirements of the State Emergency Service. Main criteria: availability of at least two exits, proper ventilation, electricity, water supply, fire safety, generators. Shelters are also required to have supplies of drinking water, first-aid kits, radios, walkie-talkies, lamps and emergency lights.

It turned out that a significant number of educational institutions of Ukraine were not ready for the beginning of the educational process under the conditions of martial law. In some schools, the shelters had been used as office space for years and were very neglected, others had only one exit or no electricity. And somewhere – all at once. Therefore, the issue of arranging safe shelters in schools has become very acute.

Since the beginning of the large-scale invasion, our Eastern Europe Foundation has reformatted its work to help Ukrainians. Together with the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, we developed the concept of arranging safe shelters in educational institutions of Ukraine. We also appealed to the Foundation’s donors to raise funds for such a project.

So, in August 2022, the “Safe School” program was created. Its main goal is to help our children safely continue their studies in Ukraine. 28 educational institutions in six cities of Ukraine were involved in the program: Kyiv, Vinnytsia, Odesa, Khmelnytskyi, Chernihiv and Sumy. These are schools, institutions of preschool education and extracurricular education, as well as institutions for the rehabilitation of young people with disabilities. The institutions themselves were chosen by local departments of education based on the availability and condition of shelters.

Photo from the Khmelnytskyi shelter

Each institution could independently choose the equipment for its shelters according to the requirements of the State Emergency Service within the set amount of 300,000 hryvnias. Also, under the “Safe School” program, three model shelters were created – that is, those that had to be not only furnished, but also fully repaired, and which can serve as an example for other educational institutions.

These were educational institutions that could not function because their shelters were unsuitable or could only accommodate a small number of people and needed expansion. Approximately one million hryvnias was allocated for the repair of such model shelters.

For example, the kindergarten in Chernihiv did not have an emergency exit, so additional doors had to be drilled there. During active hostilities in Chernihiv Oblast, a large number of local residents hid in this kindergarten for two months. After the repair work, this shelter became much more convenient, more pleasant and practical.

We have done even more than the basic requirement. We wanted to ensure not only protection, but also the comfort of students and employees during their stay in the shelter. An air alert can last a very long time. It is especially difficult for children to sit for several hours in a closed and gloomy space. In each of the shelters, necessary furniture, TVs or projectors, routers for providing the Internet, educational games, books and other useful things for children’s leisure were placed.

Special attention was also paid to psychological support. Before the beginning of the school year, the Eastern Europe Foundation, together with psychologist Svitlana Roiz, created an online course “Psychological safety of adults and children during an air raid at school.” It teaches teachers how to properly communicate and support children, how to cope with stress and how to set them up for positive emotions. These are extremely important skills when working with children, especially in wartime.

Today, there are about 13,000 schools in Ukraine, in most of which students study in a full-time or mixed format. As of December 2022, almost 75% of schools have equipped shelters. This is a good indicator, but not enough.

The pilot stage of the “Safe School” program lasted from August 1, 2022 to February 1, 2023. It covered more than 23,000 students and more than 1,730 education workers. The Eastern Europe Foundation is currently planning the next stage of the program to make even more educational institutions of Ukraine safe. For this, he is looking for financial support from donors.

We want to scale this work. When we came to the opening of shelters and talked with local authorities, we understood that the needs are enormous. Not only in cities, but also in districts, the demand for high-quality shelters is quite high. So now our main task is to find funding to continue this activity.

Olga Moloko, program manager of the Eastern Europe Foundation, especially for the UP. Life

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