How two nurseries in Ukraine are thriving against the odds

Ptashenya Kindergarten co-founder Solomiya Boikovych beams with delight as she enters each room of her new nursery. In 2022, Nursery World met Solomiya at another of her settings in Lviv, Eastern Ukraine just months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of her country. Then, staff were adapting to a sudden new reality. Today, as Ukraine enters its fourth year of war, leading toddlers to bomb shelters when air raid sirens wail has become a way of life.

But Solomiya has not let the war-time challenges deter her ambitions for delivering high-quality early education. She describes how she set about opening the group's first purpose-built setting: ‘We have built the nursery of our dreams, even during the war.’

Although considered a safer part of the country, Lviv has come under direct attack. In September last year, seven people including three children were killed when missiles landed on residential buildings. ‘It happened in the next street from my apartment,’ Solomiya says. Now she and other parents feel more anxious, as before they believed Russia would target only military sites.

All Ukrainian children aged from three to six can take up free places at state kindergartens. In Western Ukraine, 21 per cent of children are not attending the provision, according to a Unicef survey. In frontline areas, that proportion rises to 68 per cent. Respondents to the survey said pre-school closures, safety concerns and low trust in others to keep their children safe were keeping them away. Since the full-scale invasion began, 3,428 education institutions have been damaged by bombing, and 365 totally destroyed, according to Ukrainian government figures. United Nations (UN) data indicates more than 2,500 children have been wounded or killed.

Solomiya admits it is ‘crazy’ to expand her nursery group in the current climate, but believes the private nursery model she offers children aged from 18 months is needed. One reason is because the war has changed women's roles. ‘More and more mothers are alone now because men are not around,’ she says. Well over a million men have joined the military since 2022, according to the Ukrainian government. At least 43,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed. Women previously took long career breaks when starting a family, as they are entitled to three years of maternity leave. But today, women need to work and access childcare.

At the same time, however, the country's birth rate has fallen to one child per woman – the lowest in Europe, according to the UN. Solomiya expects few two-year-olds to take up nursery places, as the timing for conceiving a child of this age would have coincided with the 2022 invasion.

Above all, parents want their children to be safe. For this reason, the new nursery includes a large, underground sports hall that doubles as a bomb shelter. Many shelters in the city's schools and kindergartens have been adapted from cellars. They have low ceilings, exposed pipes and poor lighting. But the hall is a warm, softly-lit, inviting space that will easily accommodate 150 children and their carers. The kitchen and food storage is next door, meaning staff can provide meals even during air raids. Other schools have to rely on dry snacks.

The building has its own back-up generators, and solar panels on the roof, to provide an alternative power supply for up to three days during outages. ‘When there is an electricity black-out, the water pumps do not work so we don't have any water,’ Solomiya says. As a result, the nursery has a backup water supply.

The building is fitted with large windows to ensure children have plenty of natural light. But these have been designed to stay closed, and a hi-spec ventilation system fitted. This both reduces any chance of children falling from windows and enables the building to be made airtight in the case of a nuclear attack. ‘We don't know what will happen,’ Solomiya says. ‘I hope there won't be a nuclear war, but in case there is, we have everything ready to be here on our own.’

Despite these features, the building in no way feels like a bunker. The 70 children currently attending since doors opened in January enjoy a large garden planted with 230 evergreen trees, slides and other play equipment. The site is nestled between blocks of flats where many of the children live.

The outside area at Ptashenya Kindergarten has been planted with more than 200 trees

Staying positive amid unbearable experiences is a skill Ptashenya's workforce have had to learn. Across town, at another of the group's five settings, pre-school teacher Khrystyna Mankevych describes how staff and parents attended a former nursery worker's funeral in October last year. Driven by a desire to defend her country, Natalia Boyko (pictured right), 35, joined the military in 2023, but was killed 15 months later.

‘Everybody loved her: parents, kids – she was very kind to everyone,’ says Khrystyna. Sitting down at one of the child-sized tables after the last children had left for the day, she told Nursery World how the kindergarten community had supported Natalia by holding bake sales to raise money for her to buy military equipment and a car. She left the nursery at the end of the school year, to ensure children in her group had moved on to school and would not miss her. But some children still asked after her.

‘We told them she joined the military, and show them a picture of her in her uniform,’ Khrystyna says, adding that they avoid talking about her death as it can worry children who have a parent in the military.

In 2022, early years staff told Nursery World that children were mimicking soldiers and playing fighting games. But recently, Khrystyna has observed a new game: catching so-called draft-dodgers. Last year, the Ukrainian government changed mobilisation laws, requiring all men aged 18 to 60 to submit their data for military registration. Mobilisation officers can stop and check men in the streets, and if necessary escort them to registration centres. ‘I saw the kids playing out that one boy was an officer who caught another boy – kind of kidnapped him – put him on the ground and tied him up to take him,’ says Khrystyna.

Nursery World also visited Malyuk in 2022, a state kindergarten attached to a primary school. Since then, director Oksana Rosypska has renovated the large cellar, which serves as a bomb shelter for up to 300 people. The previously bare brick walls and ground are now tiled and plastered, and the room fitted with lights and emergency lighting. ‘Thanks to you, we received a powerful generator and use it when the power is turned off,’ says Oksana, referring to a joint appeal between charity UK to Ukraine and Nursery World that resulted in the donation of the generator. ‘All the children have adapted and go to the shelter without panic,’ she adds.

Like Ptashenya, Malyuk's families organise fundraising activities to support Ukraine's army. ‘We make and donate trench candles, we hold fairs and transfer funds for drones and other military needs,’ Oksana says. Classroom walls are decorated with nationalistic pictures coloured in by the children. In the school grounds, paper angels hang on snow-covered tree branches in memory of the ‘Heavenly Hundred Heroes’ – 107 people who were killed in 2014 at the beginning of Russian aggression in Eastern Ukraine. Like all state schools in the region, Malyuk has a security guard.

‘It is strange, but we are already used to working in such a terrible time,’ Oksana continues. Oksana has an air of determination to carry on despite the chaos, which is evident throughout Lviv. But she urges people in the West not to forget how difficult life is in Ukraine. ‘Don't leave us without support,’ she says. ‘It's always easier when you're not alone.’