02 Sep Ukrainian School in Bucharest
Anastasiia Konovalova, the teacher who founded a Ukrainian school in Bucharest, will never forget the navy-blue sweater she packed in her luggage at the end of February. She packed in a hurry while staying in a village near Odesa. She was living in the countryside with her husband and her son, not even two years old, seeking shelter from the war. They had no intentions of going abroad and just wanted to wait it out in the village, where they thought they would be safe, at least for a while. But a bomb fell in a nearby field. And they knew then they were not going to raise their small child amid the sounds of war.
For the little boy she packed winter, spring, summer clothes, and for herself a single navy sweater, even though it was winter. Even now she is not sure why. She also packed one of the most precious things she had at the time: a collection of Singapore mathematics books she had painstakingly gathered from all over the world, as she was going to introduce the subject in the curriculum at the “Insula” private school, which she ran as deputy headmistress. “I had such a hard time getting hold of them, and I crossed the border with a whole box filled with books,” Anastasiia says, laughing.
This school was where she did some volunteer work as a high school student, where she later found a position as English teacher, where she grew to love teaching. She says school has always been her life, “my place of strength“. That’s why when she arrived in Romania, together with other fellow teachers, a few days after her 30th birthday, she went to the Gara de Nord Railway Station to find a way to teach refugee children. There were eight of them: Anastasiia, the other headmistress, the 67-year-old owner of the school, and five other teachers. Anastasiia shouted in the station, “We are teachers, we want to teach”.
Many phone calls later, she ended up explaining, on a Sunday, to the Education Minister’s advisor, that they needed a location where they could operate a mini-school for the Ukrainian children in Bucharest. On her way to the first meeting with the advisor and the directors of the “Mihai Viteazul” National College, where the Ministry had found premises for this experiment, Anastasiia realized there was a stain on the only sweater she had brought with her and has been wearing for some time as it was still cold in Romania. When she was nearing the high school, she quickly went in a clothing store on Pache Protopopescu Boulevard and bought herself the cheapest blouse.
The meeting had a fortunate outcome and that was the beginning of Anastasia and her team’s project. What had started then has now turned into a school for 300 children, aged 5 to 11, operating in two locations, the “Mihai Viteazul” school and the “Ienăchiță Văcărescu” school. The children are learning English, mathematics, Ukrainian and for the last few months Romanian as well. This summer, they went on trips around the country, made origami and played together in city parks. The team of teachers has grown to 14 members and their salaries are funded by several Romanian NGOs. Anastasiia dreams that, starting this autumn, the children will have classes at the same location, morning to evening, in an after-school program, so that the young children and their parents will have all the conditions to rebuild their lives here.
Story collected by Oana Sandu for the Museum of Abandonment, as part of the Suitcases of Abandonment campaign. Project funded by CARE through the Sera Foundation, Care France and FONPC. Oana Sandu also wrote on the subject on DOR- https://www.dor.ro/cum-arata-o-scoala-ucraineana-in-romania/
No Comments