ECW in Ukraine
In Ukraine, the lives and wellbeing of 5.7 million school-aged children are now under severe threat from a deadly armed conflict as a result of the invasion of the Russian Federation in February 2022. These children and adolescents are suffering trauma, shelling, displacement, injury and death. ECW approved a new First Emergency Response (FER) grant in March 2022 to respond to the education needs as a result of the Russian invasion. Ukraine has now also been added to ECW's priority Multi-Year Resilience Programme (MYRP) country list and work will begin later in 2022 to initiate the development of this programme.
Between 2014 and 2018, the armed conflict in Eastern Ukraine killed at least 2,500 people, devastated entire communities and displaced over 1.5 million civilians. Children living along the ‘contact line’ of the armed conflict faced serious risks, including direct or nearby shelling on a regular basis. Hundreds of schools were damaged, destroyed or closed along the ‘contact line’, leaving more than 220,000 children, youth and educators in immediate need of safe and protective learning environments. In 2017, ECW launched a FER to support partners in providing safe learning spaces, psychosocial support and training for school personnel and local authorities in meeting urgent education in emergency needs. This FER was completed in 2018.
Investments
Financial Information
National Counterparts
Ministry of Education and Science (MoES), Department of Education in Donetsk, Department of Education in Luhanska GCA
Results
Programme Info
In 2022, ECW’s FER is aligned with the needs outlined in OCHA’s Flash Appeal, recently launched to respond to urgent humanitarian needs in Ukraine and based on the Inter-Agency Contingency Plan for Ukraine. The Flash Appeal targets 875,000 children and teachers impacted by the crisis, of which approximately 150,000 school-aged girls and boys are targeted by ECW’s catalytic grant. This FER will focus on protecting the wellbeing of Ukraine’s conflict-affected girls and boys, providing continuous access to education and psychosocial support for the children and adolescents impacted by the deteriorating situation following the Russian Federation military offensive that began on 24 February.
ECW and its strategic partners will adapt the response as the situation evolves as the longer-term education needs in Ukraine and bordering states remain unclear and may exceed initial projections.
Programme Components
- Improving access to safe learning spaces. To improve access of pre-school children attending pre-primary school, the programme supported the rehabilitation of early childhood development centres and schools. Teaching and recreational materials, including furniture and toys for children, improved the quality of the education provided.
- Providing quality learning and psychosocial support to conflict-affected girls and boys. Grantees worked with teachers to incorporate an art-based approach to provide classroom-based psychosocial support to children. Additionally, life skills, resilience programmes and mine-risk-awareness sessions were delivered to improve students’ safety, well-being and resilience.
- Supporting teachers and other education staff. ECW grantees provided teacher training to improve skills on child-friendly methodologies such as positive discipline, inclusive education, child safeguarding and stress management. Additionally, trainings were conducted with educators and local authorities to promote understanding of principles and standard protocol for education in emergencies.
For more information on ECW's work in Ukraine, please contact Country Lead Eddie Dutton (rdutton@unicef.org) and Programme Manager Vina Barahman (vbarahman@un-ecw.org).
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