Op-ed by Irwin Redlener in Newsweek
An Internally displaced child holding a pet cat looks out from a bus at a refugee center in Zaporizhia, Ukraine. AP Photo: Evgeniy Maloletka
I wanted to share my latest op-ed in Newsweek about the risk and opportunities facing Ukrainian children today. Of the 12 million Ukrainians displaced since Russia invaded earlier this year, some 5 million are children. Most of them continue to suffer severe psychological or physical trauma due to the war.
Ensuring that we continue to focus on this entire generation of Ukrainian children is the focus of our new initiative, the Ukraine Children’s Action Project. That includes developing a trauma-informed curriculum for schools and teachers to adopt and creating protocols to identify other barriers to learning. Many children I saw in my recent travels to Poland and Ukraine have displayed signs of disassociation and depression – key symptoms of post-traumatic stress.
So far, we've raised funds to send dozens of refugee children to summer camps in Warsaw and will support the development of new learning hubs in Ukraine and Poland. To read more about the ongoing need of Ukrainians and the work that the Ukraine Children’s Action Project is doing, you can read the full article here.
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“Persistent, unmanaged psychological trauma and prolonged loss of educational continuity, unless properly addressed, will have long-term consequences for these children and prevent many from leading productive, fulfilled lives. Ukraine's kids need to be assets for the future, not liabilities that will require remediation. These children are part of a new "war generation."
But it's not hopeless. Many large international agencies and non-profit organizations, in addition to scores of talented and dedicated local officials in Ukraine and Poland, are working hard. However, the scale and scope of their challenges are huge and progress is painfully slow.”
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