UNICEF, together with Ukrzaliznytsia, opened the largest children's space Spilno (Together) at the Kyiv Central Train Station. It is adapted for a comfortable stay for parents with children. It has booths for breastfeeding and a library. And it also has a sports and game area, a football corner, and a full-blown science museum with railway exhibits.
First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska, Deputy Prime Minister for the Reconstruction of Ukraine, Minister of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development Oleksandr Kubrakov, Minister of Education and Science Oksen Lisovyi, UNICEF Ukraine Representative Murat Sahin, Board Chairman of JSC Ukrzaliznytsia Yevhen Liashchenko attended the event and the discussion dedicated to it.
The participants discussed the importance of restoring children's and youth's infrastructure. The President's wife noted the need for such transformations at train stations.
"For parents, the train station is always a hustle and bustle, and for a child, it is the anticipation of an adventure. The journey begins here. The last months have been very difficult for our children, the stations were the starting point of the evacuation, so we want them to once again become the starting point of good adventures and a magnet for the return of our families," the First Lady said.
Kubrakov said that it is about comfort and opportunities not only for children, but also for thousands of Ukrainian families who want to return home.
Zelenska emphasized the importance of barrier-free access not only in children's spaces, but also throughout the country.
"It is especially important that this space is barrier-free because it is in this spirit that the country should be rebuilt. We as a society have had different needs and different obstacles before. But after the experience in the war, both children and adults will have more needs. And the first of them is the need for a comfortable, stress-free life. Not only train stations – we strive to make the country's entire space comfortable and human- and child-centered, so that our children, who have experienced so many hard moments, finally have moments of comfort and joy," the First Lady said.
For his part, the Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine noted the importance of providing a comfortable and barrier-free environment in educational processes as well.