Columns 
Originally published on The Ukrainian Weekly
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The first day of school in any country is normally a day of joy and hope as excited children return from their summer vacations to begin another year of learning, acquiring the knowledge and skills necessary for building a successful future.
Sadly, the “start of the new school year in Ukraine was marred by deadly and destructive attacks” by Russia, says the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF).
In a statement, John Marks, the organization’s representative in Ukraine, lamented attacks on educational facilities in the regions of Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, Kyiv, Lviv and Sumy during the first week of school and the continued evacuations from frontline areas with “education once again disrupted as children flee their homes.”
The scale of the disruption of primary and secondary learning in Ukraine is simply shocking.
“Russia has destroyed or damaged every seventh school in Ukraine,” says Anna Novosad, a former Ukrainian minister of education.
In an interview with The Ukrainian Weekly, she explained that due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s subsequent full-scale invasion this “is the fifth September when more than one million little Ukrainians do not go to school, where they do not see each other, they do not learn how to work in teams, they do not know what it actually means to be in the classroom.”
Ms. Novosad is co-founder and director of strategy of SavED, a charitable foundation devoted to restoring educational access for Ukraine’s children. This is accomplished primarily by creating centers called EduHives for in-person (rather than online) learning, typically in areas liberated from Russian occupation but where immediately rebuilding a destroyed school is not an option. EduHives are also created in areas that remain more susceptible to Russian bombardment due to their proximity to the frontlines of the war.
SavED has already “established more than 90 EduHives and we plan to do 30 more this year,” explained Ms. Novosad, emphasizing that these are “extracurricular learning spaces where we provide a nice and comfortable place, [electronic] devices, learning materials, but most importantly tutors. … Most of our EduHives are in places where Russians left no schools [undamaged] or where education is not possible above ground, for instance in the Kharkiv region.”
In that area, above-ground teaching is prohibited due to the intensity of Russian attacks.
Ms. Novosad noted that, if a school in a vulnerable area survived and requires only minimal repairs, the EduHive will usually be set up in an upgraded underground bomb shelter of that building.
In some places, such as the Mykolayiv region where there are barely any schools that are left, EduHives are set up in unused parts of a hospital “or in local cultural houses – those old Soviet cultural houses that are basically in every village. And we invest a lot in their repair and the provision of everything that is needed,” she said.
What was the motivation for creating SavED? Just prior to Russia launching its full-scale invasion, Ms. Novosad was studying at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., under the auspices of the Hubert H. Humphrey academic exchange program.
As the storm clouds of war gathered, she decided she needed to be back home in Kyiv. After the liberation of Chernihiv from Russian occupation, Ms. Novosad reached out to local education authorities and learned that 27 of the 34 schools in the city had been bombed or damaged to various degrees. It was quite obvious to her that the Russians were “very intentionally” targeting schools. By obstructing Ukrainian education, they hoped to erase any trace of Ukrainian identity, she said.
Having been involved in the process of assessing the devastation, Ms. Novosad and her colleague, Anna Putsova, decided to launch a charitable foundation with the goal of restoring educational opportunities for schoolchildren lacking access to in-school learning. And the needs continue to grow as Russia’s attacks on schools have been relentless.
“We see kids of primary school age who can barely speak, who cannot write or read,” said Ms. Novosad. “You know, they’ve basically had no schooling for years. … It’s a really huge blow that maybe you do not feel day by day like a missile strike but we all will definitely feel it in four, five, six years. And then it’s going to snowball and grow bigger and bigger.”
SavED was recently recognized by Forbes Ukraine as one of the top 50 largest charitable foundations in Ukraine, a testament to the success of the non-governmental organization in mobilizing and organizing resources to improve access to education. SavED has partnered with a wide range of stakeholders, including USAID, the European Commission, the World Bank, IREX, various businesses, media, bloggers and influencers, which provide financial and in-kind support as well as publicity.
SavED accepts donations through its website and welcomes volunteers, including those who can provide English-language instruction online, for example. The organization’s UActive program for teens, which engages high school students in implementing tangible wartime recovery projects in their communities, has established partnerships with schools in Purcellville (Virginia), Santa Catalina (California), Honolulu (Hawaii) and Lake Forest (Illinois). The foundation has also offered mental health support programs for educators from liberated areas.
SavEd serves as yet another example of Ukrainian wartime resilience. Some 60,000 students in the Chernihiv, Zhytomyr, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Mykolayiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions have been able to take advantage of new opportunities for in-person instruction provided by SavED and its partners.
Creating spaces for offline learning – what Ms. Novosad refers to as “little islands of first educational needs” – brings many benefits beyond just making up for learning losses caused by the war. It facilitates socialization, energizes community life, creates a welcoming environment for the return of refugees and helps develop Ukraine’s human capital, which will be essential to the nation’s future reconstruction and growth.
Adrian Karmazyn can be reached at https://www.facebook.com/adrian.karmazyn.9.