Schoolchildren are important. What is the preferential education for UBD and their children in Ukraine
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Supported by Favbet Foundation
November 20, 2023
In Ukraine, a number of benefits are provided for children of combatants and internally displaced persons, but they are aimed at obtaining a professional or higher education.
Schoolchildren who were forced to move because of the war, as well as children whose parents are defending Ukraine, can receive state assistance. But there are very few initiatives aimed at their adaptation in new conditions.
The charity Favbet Foundation created a project whose purpose is to help children of IDPs and UBD. It has three directions: sports, intellectual and humanitarian.
How to become a part of this program and join Favbet Foundation projects, “UP.Zhyttia” asked Yevhen Bondary, curator of the direction.
What support does the state provide?
The state provides support to combatants and their children (under the age of 23). It concerns the full-time form in state institutions of professional (vocational and technical), professional pre-higher and higher education.
Participants in hostilities and their children have the right to:
- full or partial payment of education from state and local budgets;
- preferential advance loans for education;
- social scholarships;
- free provision of textbooks;
- free accommodation in a hostel.
In particular, all rules and requirements are specified in the Law of Ukraine “On the status of war veterans, guarantees of their social protection”.
What documents confirm the right to benefits:
- ID card of a participant in hostilities;
- ID card with disability due to war;
- certificate of a family member of the deceased, and for children under 16 – a certificate issued to another adult family member;
- Birth Certificate;
- a certificate of registration of an internally displaced person;
- certificate of residence registration.
However, the state has not introduced additional programs or benefits for schoolchildren whose parents are participants in hostilities or children of IDP families.
Roman Zinenko, psychologist
“Military personnel get used to civilian life, because they have a different reality in war. Therefore, communication in everyday life depends very much on the degree of trust in relationships. A person himself will tell about what he considers necessary when the time comes,” says psychologist Roman Zinenko.
Not state initiatives for children
There are a number of initiatives in the country that take care of these children and adolescents.
So, for example, there is the “Superhero Club”, which was initiated by the charity Favbet Foundation.
Anriy Matyuha, president of FAVBET Foundation
“We see the statistics: millions of Ukrainians have left the country – these are families with children. By joining forces, we must create conditions, first of all, for the young generation, so that they want to return, understand that there is only one homeland and it is always better to be in the homeland than in any other place. The strategic goal of the charitable foundation remains the development of projects in sports, culture, health and education. The “Superhero Club” project, which reached the aid of hundreds of Ukrainian families, became part of these plans. And we will work towards a comprehensive and systemic support for the citizens of Ukraine. My team and I will invest in our country so that after the victory our children and young people have a future. We need to improve the quality of medicine and education, give children new opportunities for self-realization. This is our goal, and we are moving towards it. The state does not always has opportunities for this even in peacetime. And after the war, the reconstruction of the country will require colossal resources. Besides, the question is often not only in money, but also in human resources,” — Anriy Matyuha, president of FAVBET Foundation.
Evgeny Bondar, curator
“Initiatives of the state or other charitable foundations are aimed mainly at helping the military, but there are very few initiatives that concern the children of military personnel or the families of internally displaced persons. But these children desperately need communication, friends, new hobbies. That is why we started the large-scale project “Superhero Club”, because schoolchildren are an important link in the future of Ukraine, who are supposed to build the state, – said Yevhen Bondar, curator of the direction at Favbet Foundation.
“Power in knowledge”
This part of the aid project concerned stationery sets. The company created, tested and sent IDP children office supplies necessary for learning and creativity.
“The stationery sets had everything necessary for development, games and learning. In total, there were 30 items of stationery in each set. We also added a small board game. We formed clear rules about the participants who can receive the stationery set – children of military personnel or IDPs who are studying in grades 1-4. They made a form and posted it on social networks. Over 7,500 applications were received in a few days,” says Yevhen Bondar.
He says that during processing, about 2,000 applications were screened out, which did not fit the rules by which it was possible to get a set. But 5,500 sets were sent within a month. Company employees were involved in collection and packaging. They were motivated by the fact that people gave a lot of feedback and gratitude, and also – happy children with stationery.
“Currently, this part of the project is on hold because it requires human resources to sort and pack the sets,” he adds.
“Stronger together”
The direction “Stronger together” includes sports sections. So far, they work only in Kyiv, but the benefactors hope to expand the geography in the near future. In particular, to the front-line cities and cities of millions – Lviv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Odesa, Kharkiv.
“We want to cover the cities where many IDP children live, because we understand how much it is necessary for them – lively communication and physical activity. At the same time, we are looking for such youth schools that would have shelter, because we pay attention to the security situation. If the alarm sounds, the class is stopped , and the children are heading to the shelter,” says the curator of the charitable foundation.
Children of UBD and VPO can play sports at the Desnyan sports center in Kyiv, where they have football and basketball classes, and also went to “Sparta-box” for boxing and wrestling.
“Everyone works out for free, we also help with uniforms and shoes, we hold team building sessions for teams after training so that children can chat in a relaxed atmosphere,” Yevhen notes.
He adds that one of the members of the “Superhero Club” will soon take part in the wrestling competition at the championship of Ukraine.
Today, about 100 children are engaged in the sections. Children at the age of 6-8 were recruited for football, and for basketball 10-13 years old, for boxing and wrestling from 8 to 14 years old, because these are not team, but individual sports.
“Stronger Together” and other courses or activities can be accessed by children who have filled out the appropriate form on the website and submitted documents confirming their status.
Must provide:
- parents’ documents (passport, identification code);
- child’s birth certificate;
- certificate of IDP, certificate of military serviceman of one of the parents or death certificate of military serviceman.
As Yevhen Bondar explained, if someone moves or decides to stop classes, the vacated place is offered to a child from the waiting list, which is formed according to the principle of the queue.
IT Kids
IT Kids is a free program of basic IT courses for children. In the first stream, 350 teenagers aged 12-15 mastered the Python programming language. Classes were held online and offline – the participants were divided approximately equally.
Photo provided by Code Club Ukraine
Full-time classes were held in 8 large cities of Ukraine – Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia, Cherkassy, Lviv, etc.
Evgeny Bondar, curator
“At the moment, participants are being selected for the second stream on scratch. It is a dynamic visual programming language in which the code is created through the manipulation of graphic blocks. Up to 500 children are expected from all corners of Ukraine. When the recruitment is closed, groups of 10-12 people will be formed and mentors will be assigned to them The application is made in the same way through the form on the website in the order of priority,” explains the head of the “Superhero Club” department.
In the new stream, there will also be face-to-face and distance forms of IT education: wishes for it should be indicated in the application. If there are enough children from one city, the organizers can consider creating additional offline groups.
“We understand that now it is 2023, and further globalization and technology will only deepen into our lives. So we convey the material to children in as simple a language as possible and explain that most of them will be related to the IT sphere in one way or another “, Yevhen notes.
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