Ostrovok. Ukrainian Primary School & Preschool
Donation protected
Dear Friends,
As many of you know, I was born and raised in Odessa, Ukraine. My family immigrated to the United States in San Francisco in 1989, chasing the American dream. The US is my home and I proudly think of myself as an American.
After living and working in San Francisco for 21 years, my father returned to our hometown in Ukraine in 2010 to chase his dream and founded an independent preschool and elementary school called Ostrovok (Little island).
On February 24th this year, the world was turned upside down for the entire nation of Ukraine, and millions of women and children fled to surrounding European countries to escape the war.
My father evacuated from Odessa to Bucharest, Romania. Ironically, this is the same route his mother took 80 years ago running from Nazis during WW2. My father is an American citizen. He could have returned to the US, but he is staying back and fighting the only way he knows how.
With the help of Romanian volunteers, he was able to evacuate most of his teachers and staff from Odessa, Ukraine!
They found a Romanian School that graciously offered their beautiful space, off-hours, to set up a free school for Ukrainian refugee children.
They currently have 250 students, close to 400 on the waiting list, and those numbers are unfortunately growing every day!
These are the few photos my father sent me of classes in action :)
The school has been running full force since March 11th and doing a fantastic job supporting and creating a safe space for kids to learn in their native language.
The school needs financial support to cover their basic operational needs (minimal teacher salaries, supplies like computers, printers, projectors, etc.) to provide high-quality education for free. I am hoping to raise enough to keep them going for 6 months.
Check out the links below and watch the Romanian news coverage of the project.
Please donate what you can. Every penny will support the people who have shown remarkable resilience in the face of adversity generation after generation. #GlorytoUkraine #СлаваУкраїні
Organizer
Anya Kogan
Organizer
San Francisco, CA