Ideally - to conduct lessons in the basement!

But until now, 90% of Ukrainian schools do not have equipped shelters. Post-Soviet basements and semi-basements cannot be used for many reasons:

a) first of all - they do not comply with state building regulations;
b) most school basements have water and sewage pipes;
c) the width of the entrance to the basement (70-90 cm), apparently meets the standards, but is not designed for the simultaneous entry/exit of 100+ people;
d) there are no emergency exits beyond possible debris from the remains of the building;
e) there is no supply and exhaust ventilation, so the simultaneous stay of several hundred students in the basement will trivially cause suffocation;
e) water is not just a barrel with stagnant water;
g) toilet is one of the most painful problems - most school basements do not have them;
g) light, communication, Internet - this is in the recommendations, but not in practice;
h) no one talks about stress in children during their stay in damp basements or about the same claustrophobia (and it exists).

Sometime last autumn, we got acquainted with a Finnish non-profit organization that specializes in supporting local communities in 3 priority areas: the right to peace, the right to education and the right to livelihood. And the Finns made it clear that they have ambitious plans for Kharkiv:

- restore schools
- to improve the well-being of teachers
- organize temporary study spaces
- open digital learning centers

What was planned has already been partially implemented.

In the photo - our president Pavlo Filippenko, director of the department of education - Olga Demenko and representatives of the Finnish charitable foundation - met not in a modern co-working space, but in the renovated basement of the Kharkiv gymnasium. Yes, yes, it is in such conditions that schoolchildren from the city of Kharkiv will continue to acquire knowledge!

Because they have the right to it. And we are glad that school rehabilitation is in the center of attention of European partners, in particular the Finns! Thank you for taking care of education!

#Rotary_International #Rotary_in_Ukraine #charity #helpua #standwithukraine #supportukraine #helpukraine #stopwar #helpkharkiv #volunteeringkharkiv #kharkiv #saltovka #humanitarianaid #gloryukraine #volunteering #volunteersukraine #kharkov #donate #helpkharkiv #helpkids

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