Starting Second Summer Programme For Ukrainian Children In Tayside
Our goals is to bring children and parents together to learn mediation skills and how to resolve disagreements peacefully.
War displacement has affected the mental health and well-being of Ukrainian parents and their children. Being away from their home children feel isolated and experience difficulties in adapting to new schools. According to a recent PISA survey, approximately 36% of pupils in Scotland reported experiencing conflicts between peers, reporting seeing someone get hurt and seeing their schools being vandalized. It is twice as much compared to the average level of 17% which creates an additional factor to the challenges of Ukrainian children.
At the end of July 2023 we started the first summer programme called “Ukrainians Together (love) Kids” in partnership with The Circle and thanks to support of The Leng Charitable Trust. You can find a social media post on Hanna’s LinkedIn with outcomes and testimonials here. To prepare Ukrainian children for a new school year, we invited a group of 14 children to attend a course where they:
- Gained knowledge and skills in peacebuilding and mediation
- Practised resolving conflicts peacefully
- Developed their emotional awareness
- Integrated through activities and exchanging experiences
- Made new friends at the project
- Explored the marine history of the HMS Unicorn
The outcomes of the programme are improving confidence speaking to peers, developing problem-solving abilities and improving social skills. Bring Together aims to promote peaceful conflict resolution and improve relationships within families and education environment.
What Is New About Summer Programme 2024?
Bring Together Children consists of the Summer Programme and mediation days for Ukrainian parents and children living in Dundee and Tayside. The Summer Programme offers workshops and activities to improve communication and self-help skills. That will help children to resolve disagreements peacefully with their peers. The topic of this Summer Programme will be dedicated to the history of the Declaration of Arbroath. It is a significant moment in the history of Scotland that shows how long conflict between Scotland and England was resolved using creativity and negotiations with the help of the third party.
Mediation Day is a moot mediation for parents and children to practice mediation skills together and celebrate achievements. By involving parents, we aim to foster strong family relationships, make parents proud of their children, and show a new perspective on how to manage difficulties with youngsters. During the next school breaks in October, we will prepare young mediators to participate in moot mediation and celebrate their achievements with their parents.
We are grateful to the Corra Foundation, YMCA Broughty Ferry, our team, and the Ukrainian community in Dundee for their joint efforts in making this initiative possible.
