“English for Heroes’ Children”

One Kovel school has started classes on Monday with children whose families experienced the undeclared war in Ukraine in a particularly difficult manner. These children had their parents killed in action, held prisoner of war, or wounded ... The Kovel 51st Brigade Help Center takes care of them within the project “Helping the kids that bear the burden of war.” Natalia Sokolova, the Center’s coordinator and a well-known medical volunteer, says that the idea to teach children foreign languages has originated some time ago. As Ukraine persistently expresses a desire to enter the European family and integrate into it, one simply cannot be a part of this process knowing only their mother tongue. We saw the soldier’s children who went on holiday to various European countries suffer from the lack of proficiency in foreign languages.

The “English for Heroes’ Children” has been endorsed by Angelina Balkan, a Belgian citizen of Ukrainian origin. During Maidan she had an especially strong realization of her national roots, and then she helped Maidan and met Natalia Sokolova personally during her visit to a hospital in Kyiv, when she brought some help for Volynians who were treated there after the shooting at Volnovakha. And she became the first citizen of the European Union to help one of the first help centers for Ukrainian military and their families, which was created in Kovel. Angelina takes care of all the costs for teaching the children from Volyn English language. The Kovel 51st Brigade Help Center and Liudmyla Savina, project coordinator of “Helping the kids that bear the burden of war,” have chosen the “European future” school after having acquainted with its experience and results. Also, the money of Angelina Balkan are going to be used in organization of English-speaking tours, particularly to Kyiv. The project has only one requirement: not only the sponsor, the volunteers, and the parents should understand the importance of learning the language, but the children themselves must have motivation too.

Those who show good results will travel to Belgium and other EU countries to live either in families, or in English-speaking camps. There are numerous options for them to communicate with native speakers of the language they learn. Sokolova believes that Ukrainians should be appealing more to the international community, when the intelligent and sincere people everywhere across the world share the sympathy, understanding, and willingness to help us.