Volunteers are rushing to provide online counseling, art therapy, and stress relief for the more than 2 million Ukrainian children who have become refugees.
Maria Mazyra-Martos woke up to the sound of shelling as Russia launched its attack on Ukraine. She wasted no time. With a few packed clothes, medicine, and two cats in tow, the 41-year-old squeezed into a small car with her husband and three children and left Kyiv. But shortly after their arrival in Western Ukraine, air raid sirens sounded. They spent the first of many sleepless nights in the basement of a friend’s house, huddled with other displaced families.
It was a panic attack that lasted for more than an hour. “I really didn't know what to do because it was the first time that I had experienced something like this,” says her mother. Stretches and exercises, hugs, and a phone call with the girl’s godmother, a psychologist, provided some relief in the moment. “What helped me was that my psychologist said that this is normal,” says Maja.
These are signs of trauma beginning to manifest itself. To help, volunteers and charities are rushing to offer online therapy or art and play activities to provide a bit of normality. They distribute toys at border crossings, and in Poland and MoldovaIt’s not an ideal situation for delivering therapy, says Azad Safarov, a journalist and cofounder of Voices of Children.
Where children used to draw parents, houses, and trees on white paper, they now draw bombs, tanks, and weapons. Safarov says that children draw what’s on their minds, even if they may not talk to their parents about it. For example, he says, while not all displaced children have experienced shelling, they may paint pictures about it based on what they have overheard from adults. “Kids stay near their parents and listen to what they talk about, all the time,” he says.
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