Protect Families in Ukraine

Though Ukraine’s schoolteachers are traditionally trained to teach their students math, reading, science, or history, many of them have recently picked up a subject most schools don’t offer: explosive ordnance risk education.

When living in an active war, danger can often lie in unexpected places, and knowing how to identify and react to discovering explosives makes a lifesaving difference. But this information can’t reach people on its own.

Earlier this year, HALO teams in Ukraine delivered four “Train the Trainer” sessions – thanks to GlobalGiving. These sessions train future risk education instructors, giving them the knowledge, skills, and materials needed to engage their communities.

These gatherings brought together 75 people in total – all of them schoolteachers.

Hailing from five different oblasts and 14 different settlements, these educators were united by a shared mission: keep their students, friends, and neighbors safe.

First, HALO teams refreshed participants’ understanding of the risks explosives carry. Then, they introduced ways to teach this information to their own communities. Participants practiced delivering the risk education lessons, simulating real classroom scenarios to refine their teaching methods before taking a final exam.

Particularly vulnerable groups in Ukraine are children, whose natural curiosity can lead them to mistake explosive devices for toys while playing outside, and farmers, who must often continue planting their fields despite the dangers beneath the soil.

Now, these teachers are helping keep them safe, as well as anyone else who might be at risk from hidden explosives. Training like this empowers them to carry their knowledge beyond their classrooms, reaching the halls of local communities and the fields of farmers who feed the world.

In Ukraine, risk education makes a lifesaving difference to families, farmers, and communities. And by training more people to amplify this knowledge across the country, it can save more lives than we could ever reach alone.