Ukraine's lost generation caught in 'eternal lockdown' - AFP
Kyiv • UNN
Nearly a million Ukrainian children live in an "eternal lockdown," studying online due to the pandemic and war. This has led to a deterioration in psychological well-being but has also revealed a high level of resilience among young people.
After almost four years of Russia's full-scale invasion, the question arises as to what the war has done to the generation of young Ukrainians, AFP reports, writes UNN.
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"Almost a million young Ukrainians still live in 'eternal lockdown', studying fully or partially online. First there was the pandemic in March 2020, then the invasion – a total of six years when they spent most of their time in front of the family computer, studying and relaxing," the publication writes.
Parents interviewed in the Kharkiv region, where isolation is particularly felt amid constant "arrivals," "understand that their children have not developed (athletically) at all since Covid. And that they'd better play football... than sit glued to their phones."
"First two years of Covid, then four years of war – children are going crazy," says teacher Ayuna Morozova at Kharkiv's largest swimming pool complex.
Ukraine lacks resources to measure the impact of the war on young people, the publication writes.
"We don't have enough psychologists," admitted Oksana Zbitnieva, head of the Cabinet of Ministers' Mental Health Coordination Center. To try to compensate for this, "130,000 frontline healthcare workers – nurses, pediatricians, family doctors – have received WHO-certified mental health training," she said.
Although "some countries built their (mental health) systems over 50 years, we were the last to start doing so due to our Soviet legacy," she added.
The government has opened 326 "resilience centers" for children and parents across the country, and "another 300" are to be built next year, according to Minister of Social Policy Denys Uliutin.
Psychologist Maryna Dudnyk says: "The war has had a huge impact on the emotional state of young people, we all live in stress." In her office, she hears "a lot of fear and anxiety in children."
WHO researchers who surveyed 24,000 young Ukrainians aged 11 to 17 at the end of 2023 found "a deterioration in psychological well-being" and a "significant" decrease in the sense of happiness they felt.
But there was also "a fairly high level of resilience... to wartime adversity."
So much so that a UNICEF study in August reported that exams were a source of stress for them rather than air raid sirens, which "worryingly indicate that war has become part of everyday life for many children."
"Children have lost parents, friends, and sleep in bomb shelters," said Minister of Social Policy Uliutin. "And yet they continue to live, to dream."