Ukraine battles for the mental health of its children

There are looks that anticipate a loose and agile verb, even in children.

This is the case of Anastasia, 11 years old.

She has just put the final touches on a drawing on a cardboard box and describes it like this: “I used green because it is life, nature, and white because it is spirit and freedom.”

The youngest is a student at Lyceum No. 15 in Chernihiv, capital of the homonymous region, in the north of Ukraine, a couple of stone's throws from the triple border that completes Belarus and Russia.

In the definition of her art, with flying feathers, Anastasia radiates a maturity inappropriate for her age, but she goes beyond it.

She lives in one of the first regions to be attacked by Moscow in the offensive that began two years ago, in February 2022. Even today, Chernihiv is a regular target of lethal Russian bombing.

“War is something that destroys,” the girl expresses herself from a room in the city's Palace of Culture, “this helps me unload my mind because it is difficult to endure.”

Anastasia, in case there are any doubts based on the way she speaks, is still 11 years old from the first sentence.

Her childhood, her Ukrainian childhood, is hurt and serious.

And that requires attention.

Along with her, about twenty children between 11 and 12 years old participate in a session of the Club Dobrodiiv foundation in this social center, a piece of the old Soviet cultural identity.

The objective: to offer a safe space for socio-emotional support to minors in contact with war.

Anastasia explains it better.

“It serves us for the development of the group,” she continues in a simple story, “it is an extra activity that allows us to spend time together.”

The children gather their painted boxes to form a cardboard tree on the ground.

Helping the students is Tetiana Yefimenko, 36, dressed in a white coat.

“Each child feels that she is part of Ukraine,” she explains, “the puzzle will not be completed if one of them is missing.”

She seeks the unity of the children, but also for them to express themselves and relate like children.

“It is important in times of war,” adds Angelina Fedoriy, 25, a collaborator on the project, “it involves them a lot.”

According to a report prepared last year by the Dobrodiiv Club, together with the organization Plan International, based on surveys of children and young people between 13 and 19 years old, almost 40% of them fear for their life and health, as well as that of their loved ones, because of the war.

87% of those questioned said they had experienced the greatest changes they remember due to the Russian invasion.

Nine out of ten, almost all of them, nevertheless affirmed their desire to be useful in the reconstruction of Ukraine - many have done so since the beginning of the conflict through volunteering, a practice that also serves as therapy.

Two conclusions: minors are very vulnerable victims of the conflict, but also fundamental actors in the defense of the country.

One thing or another, children are children and drawing continues to channel their childhood.

Milana, 12, mentions a South Korean music band called Black Pink as a muse for her work.

That is why, as she describes her - pushing a friend who is bothering her away with her arm, very seriously -, her work on her cardboard has the colors black and pink.

“I had a good time, I don't know how to draw,” she admits without complex, “and it seems like I learned something.”

And the war, what?

“This helps us, I have forgotten during this time.”

She recognizes that she doesn't like to talk about it and changes the subject.

A group of students from Lyceum No. 15 of Chernihiv, during a session of the Club Dobrodiiv foundation. Óscar Gutiérrez

The results of the Dobrodiiv Club study led this foundation to open spaces in cities such as Chernihiv, Mikolaiv, in the south, and kyiv, the capital.

Since October, thousands of children have participated in its activities.

Unicef, the UN children's fund, estimates that around 1.5 million children in Ukraine are at risk of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder - 26%, according to UN data - and other problems. mental health.

The reasons seem clear: violence, displacement from their homes and social disorders (education, health, living conditions...) that, in the end, destroy one of the hallmarks of childhood, feeling protected.

Plan International, which has worked with more than 250,000 Ukrainian minors, warns of the impact of the war on their mental health: “Many have a very high sensitivity to loud sounds, insomnia, fear of leaving the house due to landmines and attacks. ;

constant stress and anguish for family and friends who are on the front and adaptation problems in host countries.”

In a report published by this organization last summer, minors and young people expressed the need for free psychosocial support services.

The UN is already collaborating with the Ukrainian Ministry of Education and Science to improve mental health in classrooms through different projects, including the training of up to 15,000 psychologists during this course.

There are more initiatives, such as the

How are you program,

launched by Olena Zelenska, wife of the country's president, or the hotlines of the organizations La Strada, Voice of Children and Teenergizer.

Artem, 12 years old, is a little more shy than his classmates in this classroom at the Chernihiv Palace of Culture.

In general, they are more distracted than they are.

As soon as they feel that his work is finished, they pick up their cell phone to play video games.

In Artem's box you can see the outline of something that looks like a mountain range.

“I draw this,” he says, “because I would like to go to the mountains.”

So much for the child;

Now comes the preteen from an invaded land: “This is how we love our country more;

It is desire and love for freedom.

“Ukraine cares about us, so that we develop and find a calling.”

Deathly victims

Artem is timid, but he admits that sometimes he talks to his friends about the war and that sometimes it scares them.

They have reasons.

According to the latest figure from the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office, 526 children have died due to the Russian invasion.

To these we must add more than 1,200 injured.

This public body warns in each of its messages that it is a provisional figure because it does not have detailed information on the victims in occupied or disputed territory.

The United Nations mission in Ukraine raises the number of dead minors to 579, the majority in the age group of 12 to 17 years.

Chernihiv (285,000 inhabitants before the war), with more than ten centuries of history, the city in which this Lyceum No. 15 is located, has a hundred minors killed or injured since February 24, 2022. The last The deceased's name was Sofía, six years old.

She died on August 19 due to the impact of a Russian missile on the Taras Shevchenko theater, located in a very open square in the center of this city.

There are those who think that the target of that attack was a small drone fair that was being held that day, but that, nevertheless, it had been handled with some discretion.

Attacks like the one in August mean that even a help session for minors is treated with great caution.

Zlata is 12 years old.

She was already teaching drawing classes before that February 2022, but with the war she had to stop.

She moved with her family to Ivano-Frankivsk, in the southwest of the country.

They returned to Chernihiv last summer.

While she is chatting, Zhenia, 11, and Veronika, 12, appear next to her. The three girls share that it is not normal at her age to experience something like this.

“It greatly affects our psychological state,” says Zlata.

And she scares them to tears.

“Especially when there are explosions,” this girl continues.

That seems reasonable, although not so much what Veronika, the most lively of the three, says.

She lived in an occupied area and it hurts her, as she explains when she was 12 years old, that there were people who believed that nothing was happening there.

“They thought,” she continues, “that it wasn't terrible.”

That has also been changing.

But since, at the end of the day, they are children, they can get something positive out of everything.

Zlata grabs Zhenia before leaving and tells her: “At least thanks to this we have met.”

Follow all the international information on

Facebook

and

X

, or in

our weekly newsletter

.

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

Keep reading

I am already a subscriber

_