When 12-year-old Polina Sheleng describes her life, it seems pretty normal.
She wakes up, goes to school, comes home, plays outside with her friends and does her homework.
Except, the eight-grader’s life is far from normal. Polina lives in Korostyshiv, an hour and 20 minute drive west from Ukraine’s capital Kyiv.
With near-constant air-raid sirens and the fear of bombings ever present, Polina attends school with her friends.
And she’s one of the lucky ones, many students in Ukraine are forced to study solely online, but Polina’s school offers face-to-face and virtual classes. For some, they’ve just entered their fifth year of learning online.
“In the beginning of pandemic, we were doing online of course, but then the full-scale invasion started,” Polina explains.
“Then we had classes that we had, either online classes or offline classes.
“I chose offline classes because it’s better for me. I’m it’s much more comfortable for me to get this information and I study better.”
Schools pivot amid destruction
World Vision estimates 400 educational facilities across Ukraine have been destroyed in the past two years and 3,500 damaged.
Almost one million children have been forced out of school because of this conflict.
Around 50 per cent of air-raid sirens sound between the 8am to 6pm school day, creating a constantly disrupted work schedule.
“When I heard [the sirens] for the first time, was very scared, and I thought, what was it?” Polina said.
“I didn’t know what it was. But when we knew that was an air alarm, we went to the shelter.
“Now I’m much more calm about this signal because we got used to it basically.”
Olena Kyrychenko in her classroom in the town of Korostyshiv. (Image: Supplied/Save Ukraine.)
Olena Kyrychenko is a chemistry teacher at Polina’s school. She says every day is unpredictable.
“You hear the drone, and you have this anxiety, like, what’s going to be next? For how long we’re going to have this alarm? Will it be over before the school time?” she said.
For teachers, the coronavirus pandemic forced them to re-imagine their work and Olena explains that this helped her when the Russian invasion began.
“When we needed to go online once again, we raised all those resources once again, utilised all those platforms and reorganised the children again.”
However, not all schools are fortunate to return to face-to-face classes.
No bunker, no in-person classes
Almost seven hours east of Korostyshiv is Ukraine’s second largest city of Kharkiv, which is 30 kilometres from the Russian border.
Olha Kobylyeva is an English teacher in Kharkiv. (Image: Supplied/Olha Kobylyeva.)
Olha Kobylyeva is an English teacher, who works solely online because her school doesn’t have a bunker.
“We can’t ask [our students] to come here to our school because it is unsafe,” she said.
The school has drawn up plans to convert their basement into a four-classroom bunker.
Olha has even developed a business case for the renovation and estimates it would take around $18,000. But the school hasn’t been able to raise the funds.
The basement of Olha Kobylyeva’s school they want to turn into a bunker so students can return to face-to-face classes. (Image: Supplied/Olha Kobylyeva)
For teachers in Ukraine, the past two years of the conflict drastically increased their workloads to include mental health support for their students.
“I guess every person in Ukraine, especially in Kharkiv, have their individual story, which influence on their current feelings, but we are really strong, and we are really so prepared to survive,” Olha said.
“Every morning, I write a message to my students, good morning, how are you doing today? Are you ready to go to different lessons? How do you feel yourself?
“And as an answer, I got a lot of images, which can tell me that everything is okay.
“I also tell my students, if they feel unsafe, they can call at any time so they understand that I am here with them and I can help.”
World Vision works across Ukraine and is on the front line helping children and families.
Chief executive Daniel Wordsworth recently returned from the eastern city of Dnipro to mark the two-year anniversary of the invasion.
He says the physical, emotional and psychological regression is evident in Ukrainian children after two years of war.
World Vision chief executive Daniel Wordsworth at a Save Ukraine day centre in Dnipro. (Image: Supplied/World Vision.)
“I’ve worked in war zones now for over 30 years, and let me tell you, what’s happening to the children in Ukraine is much worse than I think we realise,” Daniel said.
“We had a therapist working with one child that I was with, the child couldn’t speak, but we were trying to get the child to participate in games, in dancing and things like that.
“The therapist had to actually hold the child’s hands and help the child dance, because they were losing the sort of gross motor skill ability.”
A refuge for children
Save Ukraine is the largest non-government organisation in the country, dedicated to supporting families of war and maintaining children’s connection with education.
Olga Filina is the project manager of 16 Save Ukraine day centres across the country which have been built as a safe space for children to study and receive mental health support.
Save Ukraine day centre project manager Olga Filina. (Image/Supplied: Save Ukraine)
More than 20 psychologists work across Save Ukraine’s day centres and support children with face-to-face and online consultations.
There is also support available for adults.
The program is so in-demand, that another four day centres will open by the end of the month.
“Each week, our centres attend more than 400 children,” Olga said.
“Overall, we’ve helped more than 8,000 children and 3,000 adults from families of these children.”
Save Ukraine’s day centre in Dnipro. (Image: Supplied/World Vision.)
Olga says the day centres also provide some support to students in low-socio-economic areas that don’t have access to laptops for online education.
For children who live with a disability, often their parents keep them at home as accessing bunkers can be difficult, but these day centres allow them to return to face-to-face learning.
However, Save Ukraine is concerned that the gaps in the education system could soon worsen, and affect more children heading into winter.
“The Russians, they constantly attack our energy system,” she said.
“The experts say that in wintertime, we will have breaks in electricity about 12-18 hours per one day.
“It means that these children who have to study in evening time, they don’t have a normal opportunity to do this because absence of the light.”
