Support for Children in Ukraine

In total, about 14.7 million Ukrainians have been displaced by the war: about 5.3 million refugees abroad, and 7.1 million internally displaced individuals.

Of the more than 13 million displaced Ukrainians, 7.14 million people are internally displaced, including 2.1 million children. In total, 5.7 million children are disrupted from normal school learning, with around 10% of IDP’s children that are totally out of schooling, with potential negative effects on their future lives.

Additionally, up to 1.8 million children forced to flee urgently need psychosocial and mental health support to overcome the traumas suffered during the war. Providing these children with educational measures and learning support gives back a sense of normality and daily routine for the children. It is also a sustainable and long-term investment in their future development and personal lives.

In addition to classical educational measures and learning support, Caritas Austria's education projects also include essential accompanying measures (psychosocial and mental health support) that help children to process what they have experienced and enable them to follow and absorb the content taught in class. Such psychological measures are essential in ensuring that the traumas witnessed during the war don’t have such negative effects on the future lives of children.

Within the 14 centers and projects currently, that support more than 7,000 children until the end of 2022, the following activities, among others, are provided:

• Daily after-school activities in Caritas friendly space include leisure groups, games in combination with a range of therapies (art therapy, sand therapy, theatre play therapy, clay crafting, fairy tale therapy, forum theatre) and physical/mental exercises (gymnastics, breathing techniques, dancing) to reduce stress and improve social relations between and amongst students attending
• Building of new child-friendly spaces in schools (CSF), recruitment and training of staff to provide CFS activities in Ukraine
• Refreshment training for staff on the Safe space program and regular supervision to support the staff during work (at least one supervision session for local staff in each local Caritas organization per month/quarter)
• “Safe place” sessions for the children who were referred by school teachers upon their personal need