High five! The new Superheroes School in Kherson

04.09.20

We have opened a new Superheroes School in Kherson! This is our fifth School in Ukraine. After almost six months of training, the first students have finally appeared in the new classroom.

The 2020-2021 school year has started, and children can now study right inside the hospital. How did this become possible?
On December 19th we signed two important documents at once: a memorandum with the Kherson Regional State Administration and an agreement with the Kherson Regional Children’s Hospital. The head of the Regional State Administration Yuriy Veniaminovych Husev says: “I started a petition to the initiators of the project to make the Kherson region one of the first ones in Ukraine to participate in this project. Funds from the regional budget amounting to 80 thousand UAH were allocated to equip the necessary study space”. And this way a new class for superheroes was born in the regional children’s hospital. According to the hospital director Inna Viktorivna, this will be the best Superhero School in the country: “As the head of the hospital, the most important thing for me is to restore and preserve the health of our little patients. When the opportunity arose to organize the learning process I, of course, agreed because first of all, this can generate new positive emotions that children will experience with teachers, not the medical staff. They will inspire them to fight, which will help them recover faster.”

The oncohematology department got the brightest and most comfortable room with an area of almost 28 square meters. The design for the new classroom was developed by talented Anna and Vladyslav Yalovytski, and all furniture and equipment are made to consider children’s anatomy. An interactive whiteboard has already been installed in the classroom, and a full set of modern textbooks from “Henesa” Publishing House is waiting to be used for the first lessons.

A team of highly qualified teachers has been assembled and the superheroes will be taught by the staff of the “School of Humanitarian Work” of Kherson. This institution is very supportive of experimental education and comprehensive personal development. This means that our superheroes are in luck: the lessons will definitely go beyond the ordinary and mundane. The director of the “School of Humanitarian Work” Artem Kyianovskyi said: “Our teachers have been working with this department for a year. These little patients deserve our attention. They get very happy when they are visited by someone other than doctors and nurses who cause pain (for the sake of health) because other people help them forget about pain and diagnoses. To them, a teacher is a support system, and moreover, it is not always necessary to conduct a lesson according to the school program, sometimes a simple conversation about everyday things will be more valuable. We are first and foremost human beings, and we must learn to empathize”.

A modern school should have a modern opening. Therefore, despite all the restrictions, we have organized an online event! The founder of the Superheroes School Yevheniya Smirnova and the curator of the School and TV presenter on 1+1 channel Nataliia Moseychuk conducted a live broadcast from Kyiv. According to Natalia, this fifth School has become really special: “Thank you is the word that unites both Kyiv, Kherson, and our entire team today, which made the impossible possible. We opened a school during a pandemic when everything has stopped when there is a lockdown in almost every country. Today we open the fifth educational space of the Superheroes School with the right values, with a big soul, for the children. Teachers worked for the state because there is a subvention and teachers’ salaries come from the state budget. This school was opened due to the efforts of the regional council, the efforts of businesses and people who care”.

The broadcast and opening were joined in Kherson by a team of fantastic people led by the head of the Kherson Regional Children’s Hospital Inna Viktorivna Kholodnyak, the head of the Kherson Regional State Administration Yuriy Veniaminovych Husev, and the deputy head of the regional council Oleksandra Oleksandrivna Rukavishnikova.

Oleksandra told us how it all started and how the regional council agreed to support the project: “Initially, the process of teaching children in the oncohematology department took place in the playroom, and now, finally, we have created the appropriate and comfortable conditions for learning. The deputies immediately supported this idea because each of us understands its importance. Personally, I was deeply impressed by the words of Nataliia Moseychuk, who said that when asking children about their dreams, it turned out that children in hospitals do not dream of gadgets or something material, they dream of becoming healthy. Our task is to make every effort to make this dream come true”.

The opening of the new School was attended by the directors of two departments of the Kherson Regional State Administration who supported the initiative. Viktor Mykolayovych Korolenko, the director of the Department of Health, said: “Physical pain experienced by children should be reduced by teachers. This is, in fact, the main task of this project. During the meetings and conferences, when we discussed the project, there were no disputes or remarks, because everyone understands the idea and value of education for a child in a hospital”.

“The School has become a common cause of the city and the hospital because the main goal is to give children a chance for a bright childhood”, noted the director of the Department of Education Iryna Anatoliyevna Dorobysh. “We create proper learning conditions for every child in the region, but now, for the first time in my life, I want as few children as possible in this hospital school. If it happens that a child should fight for their life and stay in the hospital, then we, adults, must create all the conditions for children to live through this period as easily as possible. That is why we work together for the benefit of every child. We work so that there are mercy, compassion, and faith in every heart, and every kid gets a happy childhood”.
The online school opening was a challenge, but we have managed to give children the opportunity to learn. And it was not easy, shares Yevheniia Smirnova: “When the pandemic started, I got very concerned about further implementing a large-scale Ukrainian project. The children in the hospital were now in even more isolating conditions. The volunteers who used to come help and communicate with children were no longer there. And for the children, the hospital walls often become a temporary home for a month or a year. But we were lucky to have such an efficient team, reliable partners, and to find resources at this very difficult time for school-opening in Kherson, which became the fifth Superhero School in Ukraine. This is the case when new challenges create new opportunities!”.

And of course, what kind of opening would it be without children? Young patients have already checked out the classroom, desks, and shared their expectations about the classes at the School. The first lesson of the Superheroes School was taught by Maksym Bystriantsev, a computer science teacher at the “School of Humanitarian Work”.

We must be a powerful country if we have such life-changing organizations as the Kherson Regional State Administration, the regional council, and the Departments of Education and Health, which supported the right of children to receive an education while hospitalized. The School’s reliable partners who helped us turn ideas into reality, are Cooper & Hunter, Yevrolampy, International Women’s Club of Kyiv, and our loyal friends: The Democracy Commission Small Grants Program of US Embassy in Ukraine, the Trans-Atlantic Medical Relief Foundation, You’re Not Alone and the Right to Education.

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