Inna, her husband, and their children, thirteen-year-old Danylo and ten-year-old Nastya, live in the village of Zachepylivka in the Kharkiv region. When the full-scale invasion began, the family decided not to leave and stay in their home. Inna and her husband owned a local store at the time and were going to go to buy supplies in the morning.
"The children were at their grandmother's house, 10 kilometers from Zachepylivka. In the morning, my husband's mother called and said that war had begun. At first we didn't believe it, we started watching the news and calling our friends. Then we found out that they were almost in the West of Ukraine, and in general, a lot of our friends had left. Life stopped for us."
But then the family realized that they could not leave their business, and that they had to support people because they needed food and water. "We mentally pulled ourselves together and went to buy the goods. And the children stayed with my husband's parents, they have a farm, so we were not worried, because we knew it was safe there," the woman says.
Eventually, Danylo and Nastya returned to Zachepylivka and live there with their parents to this day. To protect the children's psychological health, Inna and her husband tried not to panic in their presence, limited access to the news and did everything possible to reduce the impact of the war.
Earlier this year, a child-friendly space was opened at the school where Inna's children study as part of the project "Preparing Schools for Social Cohesion." There, Danylo and Nastya can receive psychosocial support and socialize, as they have been enrolled in online education for more than two years.
"It is very important for us, as parents, that this space has been opened in our village and that children can spend time there. We owe this in particular to our teachers who work with the children there. The children's impressions are only positive, they talk enthusiastically about what they do there. The children have the opportunity to meet their friends and communicate with each other," Inna adds.
Danylo shares his impressions of visiting the space, saying that he is happy to visit the space because he can meet his friends and spend time with benefit. "I like board games the most because they develop and train the mind. Also, teachers conduct classes for us here and we do physical exercises. We often meet with our friends and spend time together, because we haven't seen each other for a long time because of distance learning. This is a good opportunity to spend time with them."
Now the family lives in their hometown and continues to develop their business. Danylo and Nastya are constantly involved in activities in the CFS, and their psycho-emotional state is improving. At the moment, Inna's only wish is that her children have a happy childhood. She and her husband are ready to make every effort to fulfill this wish.
As part of the project, Tdh has created and equipped 33 child-friendly spaces in communities in Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv, and Odesa oblasts.
The project "Preparing schools to be sites of social cohesion" is implemented by Terre des hommes Foundation in Ukraine with the support of the EU4ResilientRegions - Special Assistance to Ukraine project, implemented by the German Federal Company Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ Ukraine) GmbH on behalf of the German Government.
