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Key Points
- According to UNICEF, 825,000 children in Ukraine are in need of access to community-based mental health and psychosocial support.
- Kyiv-based table tennis school Pulse has helped hundreds of children, forcefully displaced from the city of Mariupol, currently occupied by Russia.
- According to Home Affairs, 2,145 forcefully displaced Ukrainians have been offered a pathway to permanent residency in Australia.
As the war enters its fourth year on 24 February, almost 6.8 million Ukrainians have fled the country, while two million children are in need of humanitarian support, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says.
Helping displaced children
The two cities became internationally known in 2022 for the scale of alleged war crimes perpetrated by the Russian soldiers there. Mariupol still remains under Russian control.
“Vadym said, the space is a bit run down, but we can fix it up and turn it into an evening school. Children will come there, play table tennis and get psychological support.”
An ‘island of warmth and love’
Gradually it has grown into a community hub, not only hosting classes, but also organising excursions, outreach experiences with famous athletes and vacation care programs.
Kyiv-based Pulse supports children through sports classes, outreach and vacation care programs. Credit: Supplied / Pulse table tennis school
Yatsenko said that when the school started, there was no heating or generator for electricity in case of blackouts.
“There were heavy shelling [of Kyiv] on New Year’s Eve in 2022,” she said.
There were blackouts and we hosted our classes with torch lights on the phones. The kids didn’t want to leave.
Iryna Yatsenko from table tennis school Pulse
Yatsenko recalled that at the start she was spending hours online looking for donors across the world. A Ukrainian community organisation in Basel, Switzerland was the first one to support Pulse.
“They [Australian activists] believed in us. We are grateful to them and to everyone in general for simply believing in us,” Yatsenko said.
‘Not only survived, but thriving’
“We set a goal to raise $10,000. As of today, we have raised about $7,000, with a little over 100 donations,” Harrison told SBS Russian.
The fundraiser for the Kyiv-based school has been supported by donations from across Australia and New Zealand, with language schools and daycare centres participating in the effort. Credit: Nadia Dikareva
The effort was supported by donations from across Australia and New Zealand. A Sydney-based language school donated all of the proceedings from its Christmas concert in December 2022, while an Auckland-based daycare hosted a bake sale with some funds going to Pulse.
“The first donations were for simply to try to somehow warm up, to buy a generator, to paint the walls, to install doors. And the school not only survived, it is thriving. It has now turned into a real rehabilitation centre.”
‘Children without the war’
Yatsenko explained that excursions are the most dangerous, as the children have to quickly evacuate to nearby shelters or at the underground metro stations.
“But that time we didn’t expect it, there were some crazy explosions.”
“All the nerves and this preparation were worth it because the kids were just having fun. They were just enjoying themselves. Children without the war — this is beautiful.”
Ukrainians fleeing the war and coming to Australia
As the war rages on in Ukraine, the Australian government has offered a pathway to permanency to forcefully displaced Ukrainians.
In a statement to SBS Russian, a Home Affairs spokesperson said: “The Australian Government remains committed to supporting Ukrainians and their family members who are in Australia because of the war, and we continue to monitor the situation in Ukraine closely.”
