Children in Ukraine started the new school year at the beginning of September, and many of them had a school bag from Germany with them on this important day. During the summer, the Johanniter Aid Communities (JHG) had launched a nationwide school bag collection campaign for humanitarian aid projects in Ukraine, including Mission Siret.
The campaign collected 950 school bags for Mission Siret alone, which our volunteers distributed to girls and boys living in refugee shelters in the Chernivtsi region. Others were delivered to partner organisations, which took them to children in war-affected areas in the east of the country.
Photos from Kharkiv show just how much joy the school bags brought to the children. Many of the Johanniter Aid Communities had collected not only school bags, but also included pens, pencil cases and writing pads. In this way, the children were given a small sense of normality at the start of the new school year, even though for many of them, lessons soon had to take place in shelters once again.
