A Year of Resistance, Support and Unity

One year ago, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which resulted in huge human losses, displacement of the population, humanitarian crisis, destruction of critical infrastructure, educational and medical facilities, and global changes in the lives of Ukrainians.

But in the face of these challenges, Ukraine has demonstrated incredible strength and resilience.

The war in Ukraine is having a devastating impact on education sphere as well as the other spheres. The future of 5.7 million school-aged Ukrainian children is at risk.

Educators are now doing a huge and extremely difficult job - they are teaching students in bomb shelters, trenches, subway stations and other different and strange places, but not in schools, as it should be in normal life. It was painful, difficult, scary, uncomfortable, but they did not stop. Neither the shelling nor the lack of electricity, communication, and the Internet broke the will and desire to support, teach, educate, and provide knowledge to a new generation of Ukrainians.

Despite the war and the introduction of martial law in Ukraine, the Trade Union of Education and Science Workers of Ukraine continued its main activities, protecting and defending the rights and interests of education workers. Humanitarian and volunteer work was added to its main activity. The premises of regional organizations, trade union branches in kindergartens, schools, and universities also became humanitarian hubs where everyone who needed help could get it.

The Trade Union of Education and Science Workers of Ukraine have provided financial assistance received from EI Solidarity Fund and the trade union organizations from other countries and its own funds for its members who were wounded and to the families of those educators who were killed; to those who lost houses or whose houses were partially destroyed. Those internally displaced people, who are trade union members, received targeted financial aid from the Trade Union.

With the support of UNDP and the NGO "Institute of Public Education and Labor," the Trade Union of Education and Science of Ukraine implemented the grant project "Education Without Limits," which opened educational spaces for internally displaced teachers, lecturers, and students in the western regions of Ukraine, namely Truskavets, Lviv, and Uzhhorod.

In the summer, a group of children of members of the Trade Union of Education and Science of Ukraine from Rivne, Kirovohrad regions and the city of Kharkiv had the opportunity to relax and improve their health in a tent camp in Berlin - Heiligensee at the invitation of the German Education Workers' Union GEW. The camp was organized by the German youth organization Die Falken in cooperation with the Central Committee of the Trade Union of Education and Science of Ukraine.

Recently, with the assistance and financial support of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the Polish Union of Teachers (ZNP) and in cooperation with the Trade Union of Education and Science Workers of Ukraine, 12 educational institutions in Lviv region received generators.

At the highest level, the teachers' union worked with social partners to protect the rights of educators and prevent their restriction, provided legal consultations, informed international colleagues about the state of education in Ukraine, held training events, provided psychological assistance and support to all those who applied through regional organizations, personal requests, etc. And now the work continues.

The Trade Union of Education and Science Workers of Ukraine is sincerely grateful to all those who defend Ukrainian sovereignty, who support Ukraine inside the country and abroad, who maintains the education system.  

We are convinced that together we will win this terrible war!

International Department