By Anna Pidgorna | Donor relations manager
Dear supporters of Ukraine Crisis Media Center and of our project United Children of Ukraine: Share stories of peace!
We started our project in May when high school children from all over Ukraine were invited to share their stories of peace. Essays were accepted all through June and by the end of the month we received 332. A separate volunteer from our team was assigned to remove all indication of names and geographic origin of the authors, in order to avoid bias. We never indicated what language should be used for the essays. Most of the stories were submitted in Ukrainian, however, 60 were in English, a few in German and French, and two in Russian.
The shared stories hold a lot of pain and sorrow, but not despair. Children know it is difficult, but they believe in staying strong. They also understand, that change must start from oneself, not from others. And no one can change our country for us, we have to do it for ourselves.
An expert panel selected 50 of the strongest essays. They did not know the names of the children or their geographic origin, so there was no selection bias. The results were announced via live briefing on August 17th 2015. Possibly due to the fact that peace is more important to those who have seen war, the majority of the selected essays were written by children who live close to the frontline. Interestingly, not a single essay came from Kyiv.
The next steps – publishing the brochure with the 50 best stories. It is planned for November 6th 2015. On November 16th the young authors of the 15 best essays will come to Kyiv for a live press-briefing and a training on journalism. UCMC will continue raising funds to support these planned activities and to help widely distribute the brochure to more parts of Ukraine.
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