Learning doesn’t stop for air raid alerts
Kryvyi Rih schools return to in-person learning thanks to shelters
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Kryvyi Rih Gymnasium No. 33 is loud and busy. Several things are happening at once: builders are finishing repairs on classrooms and putting the final coat of paint on the new shelter, teachers are hanging a new sign, and students are rehearsing dances for the ceremony. Everything has to be ready by 1 September.
“This 1 September matters enormously to us, because from that day life at our school changes completely. Remote learning was very hard — teachers couldn’t see the children, and the children couldn’t see their teachers. Now, finally, we can move to in-person classes this year,” says the gymnasium’s principal, Valentyna Komisarova, as her colleagues, along with parents and students, decorate the assembly hall.
This year, 257 students at Gymnasium No. 33 will take their seats, joined by 74 new neighbours from the Beryslav school, relocated from the Kherson region. All of them will study together in the gymnasium building.
“This became possible because we now have a shelter, built with support from the European Union and UNICEF,” Valentyna says, adding that the large shelter is what made it possible to bring the two schools together, and to move to full in-person learning that will continue even during air raid alerts and blackouts.
“Of course, we’re very excited. The last time we had in-person classes was before the war. Now we’ll finally all see each other again and be able to teach the children properly. The shelter lets us keep them safe. For every family, a child’s health and life are what matter most, and we understand that. That’s why having these safe conditions is so important,” Valentyna says, giving a tour of the new shelter.
UNICEF Ukraine
UNICEF Ukraine
The large space still smells of fresh paint, but new desks and chairs are already in place, waiting for students. The shelter has toilets, internet access, heating and water supplies — everything needed so that children can keep learning safely and comfortably during air raid alerts.
“School is a breath of fresh air for my son”
David, a 9-year-old schoolboy from Kryvyi Rih, finds it hard to sit still. He’s an energetic boy who’s always on the move. So even today, when he came with his mother to see the new shelter at his school, he ran straight to the sports ground first and only after spending some time on the monkey bars and swings did he head down the long staircase underground to see what his classroom will look like during air raid alerts.
“I really want to go back to school, because I love spending time with my friends. It’s interesting there, people help me, I learn new things, and I get to see my teacher more often. She’s really good. But you can’t really talk to friends online: you just sit at home alone with a phone, and everyone looks bad on a tiny screen,” David says. He started first grade after the start of the full-scale war.
Over the past years, David has studied either online or in a blended format. His mother, 39-year-old Tetiana, says the social isolation, combined with the shelling and the constant pressure of war, has taken a toll on her son’s emotional state.
“School started off very hard for my son. We would go in for just a few hours, and then he’d keep studying on his own at home. The school didn’t have a proper shelter yet. Teachers renovated the basement themselves, and children studied in shifts. It took him a long time to adjust to that rhythm. Then came online classes, blackouts and constant air raid alerts. And that stopped being normal schooling at all.”
For the sake of David and his younger sister, Tetiana left her job as an accountant so she could be with her children during shelling. Last year, she helped her son with lessons he missed because of power cuts and poor internet connection.
Kryvyi Rih is an industrial city in the southern Dnipropetrovsk region and one of the largest Ukrainian cities closest to the front line - roughly 50 kilometers from the fighting. Air raid alerts here can sound several times a day, and families often have only a few minutes to reach shelter.
On 18 August, David had to take cover in a shop near his home when a drone flew over their neighbourhood.
“I’m an anxious mother. When my child needs to go to school, and an air raid alert starts, I just don’t know what to do because staying home isn’t safe either. The two-walls rule doesn’t feel like enough anymore when missiles or guided bombs are hitting the city. Safety is what matters most for our children. So when my child is at school and can go down to the shelter, my heart is at ease,” Tetiana says, adding that she had been looking forward to the shelter’s construction and opening for a long time.
“School is a breath of fresh air for my son. It’s his development, a push to keep moving forward. That’s where they share their news: who found out what, who went where. It sparks his curiosity: he wants to try new things, pick up new skills.”
“At school, we feel at home”
While Gymnasium No. 33 is already a familiar, much-loved place for David, for students from the Kherson region it is only just opening its doors. This year, thanks to the large shelter, the relocated school from Beryslav will be able to hold in-person classes inside the gymnasium building.
Beryslav, a small town on the right bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson region, has effectively ended up on the front line. Most of the town’s homes, schools, hospitals and shops have been destroyed. Beryslav is under mandatory evacuation for families with children.
Many families from Beryslav moved to Kryvyi Rih, a large, relatively safer city.
“We came here with the children for a month, just to wait out the shelling. We’ve now been living here for four years,” says Iryna, mother of 13-year-old Danylo and 6-year-old Alina.
For all those years, the children have thought daily about home: the river where they used to swim, their toys, the school Danylo attended and where Alina was meant to start.
“The children lived through fighting, saw tanks in the streets, went through a time when there was neither food nor water in the town. So when we moved to Kryvyi Rih, we decided not to change Danylo’s school and kept him studying online at his own school instead. He’d already been through more than enough stress. He’d lost his home, his friends, everything,” Iryna explains.
The news that the Beryslav school would resume in-person classes in Kryvyi Rih was incredibly welcome for the family. Danylo will now go into 8th grade and Alina into 1st grade, at that same school. The children will even be taught by the same teachers who once taught their mother, Iryna.
If anyone is happier about it than Iryna, it’s Danylo. Last year, he realised that in the upper grades he needed to move from online to in-person classes, to catch up on important subjects he had fallen behind over the past few years.
“Before the war, I did well in school, I was a top student, but my grades got worse with online learning. It’s obviously much easier for me to go back to in-person classes at my own school, where I have my teachers, my friends, and I know everyone. And it’s great that there’s a shelter, so we’ll be able to keep learning during air raid alerts. I think I’ll be able to catch up.”
Today, this school is one of the few threads still connecting the family to the home they lost.
“When we came to the school today and saw our teachers, when Danylo saw his friends, it felt like we’d been back home,” Iryna says, visibly moved, as she helps set up the new classrooms, both in the gymnasium building and in the shelter.
UNICEF supports the transition to in-person learning wherever possible, since online education cannot replace face-to-face interaction.
With financial support from the EU and the governments of the Republic of Korea, Norway and Spain, as well the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) via the German Development Bank (KfW), UNICEF has restored shelters in 192 schools and kindergartens since 2022. All shelters built with UNICEF’s support are child-friendly safe spaces that support learning. In 2026, a further 75 shelters are being restored with support from the EU and the governments of Germany and Spain.
