During her visit to Zakarpattia, First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska together with the team of her Foundation visited a camp providing psychosocial support to children. The camp was organized by the Voices of Children Charitable Foundation and funded by the Olena Zelenska Foundation.
This summer, 184 young Ukrainians had the opportunity to recreate at the camp. Among them were children living in the frontline and de-occupied territories, children who lost their parents as a result of the Russian aggression, and children of military personnel.
“Children who know first-hand what war is like should not be left alone with their experiences and feelings. Today we have seen with our own eyes how the camp team supports the children psychologically and develops their creative, athletic, and intellectual talents. And most importantly, it helps them refocus and find their inner strength,” the First Lady said.
The Voices Camp was able to host young Ukrainians, particularly from the Dnipro, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
“For us, the partnership with the Voices of Children Foundation is our contribution to helping children who need a professional approach to treatment and rehabilitation,” Nina Horbachova, Director of the Foundation, noted.
The camp team includes experienced psychologists, mentors, and teenage volunteers aged 16 and over who help the children adjust on a peer-to-peer basis.
“We study the history of each child who comes to us and tailor the program of each shift to meet the needs of the children,” Olena Rozvadovska, Chair of the Board of the Voices of Children Charitable Foundation, said.
The President's wife held a joint lesson for children with a psychologist and attended a drawing workshop and mine safety training offered by the Foundation's partner, HALO Ukraine. This organization also helped conduct classes at the Artek-Bukovel camp, where the Foundation arranged a vacation for 1,500 children from large foster families.
“Based on our years of experience working with children, we developed an innovative training course on the dangers of explosives. The interactive one-hour quest allows us to better engage children in the learning process by taking into account their age and individual skills,” Bruce Edwards, Head of Partnerships at HALO Ukraine, said.
All four shifts of the Voices Camp were funded with the help of the Foundation's partners: the Estonian Center for International Development (ESTDEV) and a philanthropist from South Korea – Good Steward Inc. FEBC-Korea.