Czech Republic Marks First Year of “Roots and Wings” Program Helping Ukrainian Children Abroad Stay Connected to Homeland

According to the program’s author and educational projects coordinator of the Pylyp Orlyk Foundation, Natalia Omelchuk, eight organizations took part in the program — thirteen participants in total: teachers and civic activists for whom teaching Ukrainian history and preserving the Ukrainian identity of children currently living in the Czech Republic are important.

The program ran for one academic year. During this time, four three-day in-person trainings were held in Prague, along with more than ten online meetings, lectures by Ukrainian scholars and experts, and ongoing mentorship for participants.

“The most important thing we managed to achieve is building a community of people who care about teaching. We showed that history can be taught not only in the classroom and not only through textbooks. Museums became a space for learning and exploration for the program’s participants and their students,” Natalia Omelchuk notes.

According to her, more than a hundred children in the Czech Republic joined the program, studying Ukrainian history over the year through, among other things, research and work with artifacts and museum exhibits.

“History stops being a boring text and becomes an active part of the child’s own world, because learning outside the classroom broadens one’s worldview,” Natalia Omelchuk emphasizes.

The program brought together teachers from Ukrainian schools and cultural-educational centers in Prague, Brno, Olomouc, Jihlava, and České Budějovice. Together they worked on developing modern educational practices that help Ukrainian children in emigration retain their identity, study Ukrainian history, and feel a sense of belonging to the Ukrainian community.

One distinctive feature of the program was the use of interactive teaching methods and museum pedagogy. This proved decisive for many participants.

Iryna Zabiiaka, co-founder and teacher at the Ukrainian Saturday School of the Ukrainian Cultural and Educational Center in Brno, says she joined the program after her first introductory meeting with the Pylyp Orlyk Foundation.

“For several years now, our Saturday school has been looking for a way to tell children about Ukrainian history in a way that’s interesting to them, so they don’t just glance at information and forget it, but carry it forward,” she says.

According to her, what captivated the children most was learning through objects and artifacts — replicas of historical exhibits, photographs, timelines, and collaboration with museums.

“The children really loved this way of learning. I hope the knowledge they gained over the year will become a foundation for their continued study of Ukrainian history,” Iryna Zabiiaka notes.

“Many children attending Czech schools have not had the opportunity to study Ukrainian history. The Pylyp Orlyk Foundation’s program is designed to change that. According to the Ukrainian World Congress, in 2015, 67% of diaspora Ukrainian schools did not include Ukrainian history among their subjects. We offered educators a convenient and innovative methodological solution and already reduced that statistic last academic year through the program’s implementation in the Czech Republic, Denmark, and Sweden,” emphasized Yaryna Yasynievych, program director of the Pylyp Orlyk Foundation.

Yana Leontieva, a representative of the “Palianytsia” organization operating in Prague, shared her experience. She says that throughout the year, children attended classes every Saturday and took part in themed workshops and museum tours.

“The interactivity of the course, its openness to new pedagogical models, and the chance to literally touch history made us fall in love with this project at first sight.

We thought putting together a puzzle map of Ukraine would be a simple task and every child would easily find their region. But it turned out to be not so easy. At the same time, by the end of the course we saw that the children had become interested in Ukrainian history.

We asked the children who they felt themselves to be — Ukrainians, Czechs, or students. Almost all the children said they considered themselves Ukrainian. And that was very important to hear,” Yana Leontieva notes.

Vasyl Zvarych, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to the Czech Republic, took part in the closing event.

“Because of Russian aggression, millions of Ukrainian children are scattered around the world today. Thanks to this educational program, children strengthen their Ukrainian roots and gain additional wings to build a new European Ukrainian state,” the diplomat noted.

According to him, the program’s special value lies precisely in investing in teachers.

“It is precisely teachers who determine how well they can instill in Ukrainian children a love for their history, language, and culture. It is very important that children integrate into new societies without assimilating, without losing their roots, and that they pass this knowledge on to future generations,” Vasyl Zvarych emphasized.

Volodymyr Yelchenko, head of the international policy research direction at the Pylyp Orlyk Foundation and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to the United States from 2019 to 2021, who took part in both the opening and the closing meeting of the program, is convinced that the significance of such initiatives far exceeds their current scale.

“Some may think this is just a drop in the ocean. But the teachers who have completed the program will train their colleagues, so this idea will scale up. We want this experience to become a model for Ukraine’s state policy as well,” he emphasized.

According to the diplomat, supporting Ukrainian children abroad is a strategic issue.

“Otherwise we risk losing many Ukrainian children who today find themselves outside Ukraine against their own will. Even if some of them remain abroad, they will not lose their connection to their historical homeland,” Volodymyr Yelchenko noted.

Ihor Kharchenko, chief consultant of the Pylyp Orlyk Foundation, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine, and Candidate of Historical Sciences, emphasized the special role of teachers in this process.

“The third person after one’s parents whom a child remembers for life is the teacher. That is why this work is extremely important. The Pylyp Orlyk Foundation is doing work today for the future,” he said.

The Foundation is convinced that preserving the Ukrainian identity of children who have found themselves abroad because of the war is one of the key challenges for Ukraine today. And it is precisely through education, history, culture, and community that children can be helped not to lose their roots while also being given wings for the future.

We previously wrote about how the closing meeting of the “Roots and Wings” program began in Prague, as we reported earlier.

The Pylyp Orlyk Foundation is implementing the “Roots and Wings: History That Unites” program in the Czech Republic in partnership with the Ukrainian Institute in Prague, with the support of the Embassy of Ukraine in the Czech Republic, and is grateful for the hospitality of the Ukrainian Consultative and Civic Center in Prague.

Photos can be downloaded here.