School for Ukrainian Refugee Kids in Budapest

4.3 million Ukrainian children have been displaced by the Russian war. At last count, almost 400,000 have ended up in Hungary.

These young kids need hot meals, books in their own language, and even more importantly: spaces where they can resume their education, socialize, and start learning Hungarian in case the war continues.

Crossover is partnering with NGO MigrationAid  to co-found a Learning Center to host refugee kids (aged 6-9) and teachers. We’re supported by an army of volunteers including EdTech expert (and Russian expat) Anastasia Chukovskaya . With a background focused on the education of migrant children and refugees, Anastasia wasn’t content solely to fill the urgent needs of people arriving at the train station every day.

We’re working together to refit an office space (formerly the HQ of a large homeware store) into a makeshift school with equipment to support 80 refugee students and 20 refugee teachers. We got this place for free for now. The community has mobilized to make it happen – including free furniture from IKEA. The space will also contain a library with Ukrainian books, and offer support including therapy sessions for parents and spaces for people to meet or work.

We need $300k to operate this school for the next 12-18 months. This will cover:

   - salary for teachers
   - hot meals daily for the kids
   - books in Ukrainian
   - infrastructure (computers, A/C units, office equipment, TVs, wifi, etc)
   - office bills (electricity, heating, internet, cleaning, insurance, etc)
   - a space (the converted office is temporary)
   - renovation (labor is done by volunteers)
   - furniture (most donated by IKEA for now)
   - daily transportation (from refugee centers or temporary housing)
   - offsite trips and summer camp at Lake Balaton 

We intend to scale the program further with the wider remote worker community but want the first one to come from Crossover internally, to lead by example.

Crossover will match 100% of donations, making your support go twice as far.