How a ‘school in a box’ is helping children back to class in war-ravaged Ukraine
A year after Russia invaded Ukraine, Kate Rice discovers how vital school supplies are giving students in a warzone ‘the routine of a regular, normal day’
ABOUT THIS PROJECT
On February 24th 2022, 16-year-old Ania woke up and got dressed to go to her school in Oleksandria, in central Ukraine. But she would not go to school. Instead, she received a call from her grandmother who would tell her that her country had been invaded, and war had begun.
That same morning, Sofia – just 15 years old – was hurriedly packing what documents and belongings she could into suitcases. “I couldn’t understand why it had happened and how,” she says, “I couldn’t even realise that the war had started”.
Seventeen-year-old Valeriya was able to get to school, but there were no classes. “I was upset,” she recalls, explaining how her teachers simply told her to go home.
Twelve months later, and nearly a thousand miles away, Emma Maspero stands in a buzzing warehouse in Denmark – machines are whirring, forklift trucks are lifting cases upon cases of supplies, and assembly lines are filled with chatter as hands stuff items into boxes.
Maspero, the UNICEF Supply Division’s Senior Emergency Manager, is at their warehouse in the Port of Copenhagen. It’s the largest humanitarian facility in the world, spanning 20 thousand square metres and filled to the brim with supplies, machines, and workers.
It’s been a year since Russia invaded Ukraine; a year since millions were displaced from their homes, their schools, their livelihoods. As of January 2023, a total of 3,025 educational institutions have been subject to bombing and shelling. As many as 406 have been completely destroyed. That’s preschools, secondary schools, special education schools, and colleges. But more than that – for many that’s a place of structure, of safety.
Back in Copenhagen, stacks of ‘School in a Box’ are being made: sizeable aluminium cases packed tight with school supplies. Pens, pencils, exercise books – there’s even a tin of black paint for the teacher to transform the back of the box into a chalkboard. They’re shipped by UNICEF to crisis areas across the globe, for children who have been forced to leave their education. Today, they are being sent to Ukraine.
“It’s designed for 40 children for a period of three months – and one teacher – and it has all of the supplies necessary,” Maspero explains. “It really has the ability to set up a classroom under any circumstances.”
Once a child drops out … it’s almost impossible to get them back
For many girls leaving education in conflict, the odds are stacked against their return. Young girls like Ania, Sofia, and Valeriya can face the risk of early marriage, early childbearing, and family expectations to provide unpaid domestic support.
“That’s exactly what we can’t afford to happen,” Maspero is adamant, explaining that keeping schools open in any capacity during conflict is a crucial factor in keeping young girls in education.
“We need to keep girls in school because in many emergencies, once a child drops out … it’s almost impossible to get them back.”
According to UNICEF, 129 million girls are out of school globally, and girls in countries affected by conflict are more than twice as likely to be out of school than those living in non-affected countries.
School in a Box gives teachers and their students the opportunity to set up a classroom in any location and restore access to education as quickly as possible. There are locks on the case to keep supplies safe, and enough supplies to last them three months – often even longer.
It allows schooling to remain a structure in young people’s lives rather than be stifled by crisis, which Maspero believes is critical for their futures. Education supplies may not be in the first wave of aid being sent to crisis areas, she says, but they will follow soon after.
“[It’s] really important for their psychosocial wellbeing. Children need to be children, they need to be interacting with each other, they need the routine of a regular, normal day – and education helps give us that.
