Since the war started in the Eastern parts of Ukraine in 2014, Mondo has provided humanitarian aid, psychosocial counselling, and digital support to internally displaced persons and schools affected by the conflict. The main coordinator of this aid is an old colleague and friend Veronika Svištš, with whom I was able to have lunch in between her travels to Ukraine.
From humanitarian aid to support to schools
Veronika was an obvious choice to lead Mondo’s efforts in Ukraine in 2014 with her own Ukrainian roots and language knowledge. She was quick to establish a relationship with a local partner, Vostok SOS, composed of young people who were themselves internal refugees from the Luhansk region in Eastern Ukraine. “Both in 2014 and again last February, we were quick to organize humanitarian aid directly to war affected territories. The spring of 2022 was crazy as we were trying to respond to the changing needs on the ground. Now as the UN and other bigger international organizations have taken over delivery of humanitarian aid, we have more time for supporting schools and education,” Veronika explains.
Between 2014 and 2022 Mondo was supporting 40 schools in Eastern Ukraine with digital skills, civics, and human rights education. Now many of those schools are in occupied areas or at the front line. In some areas, pupils are forced to attend places of education organized by the occupying force. In some places, Ukrainian school is only available online. And in some other areas, teaching happens in a hybrid format. “Teachers have some of their pupils in class, some are connecting from their homes nearby as the size of their bomb shelters regulates the number of children who can attend in person. Some schools have been bombed and air [raid] alarms are frequent. In hybrid classes teachers also have refugee pupils connecting online from other countries, as they still want to continue their Ukrainian schooling in hope of rapid return,” Veronika notes.
“Many times those children are attending more frequently than their peers located in Ukraine who suffer from power shortages and lack of equipment. When parents need to work online and two or more children would need to study at the same time, the one computer the family might have is not enough”.
The importance of mental support
Through her frequent travels to Ukraine, Veronika has first hand knowledge on how people are coping in the prolonged war situation. “People are very patriotic, media tries to keep morality up by not mentioning losses. But everyone can see that graveyards are getting full.” In schools, many children have lost family members and have seen war up-close. Teachers report that some children are numb, unable to speak about their losses. Anxiety and behavioural problems in classes have become more frequent. Material damage is more easily repaired than the mental problems the war has caused.
“The first lady of Ukraine has fortunately brought up the need for mental support in a context where that was not so accepted before”, says Veronika. “We’ve tried to address this by organizing art therapy for Ukrainian refugee pupils in Estonia, providing online psychological consultations in Ukraine and sending student psychologists into schools. But more is always needed”, Veronika says.
“Mental recovery will take a long time. For us it is important that pupils have the opportunity to continue their daily routine of going to school, and get help from professional psychologists when needed. That will hopefully give them some hope for the war to end soon.”
