EP. 12: Giving Children in Ukraine a Voice – How Olena Rozvadovska finds sanity during war

00:00:04: Welcome to the podcast "Yak Ty? – Ukraine Live". Yak Ty? means "How are you?" in Ukrainian. I am your host, Luzia Tschirky, a former correspondent, now a book author, and a freelancer. I am more than delighted to welcome today's guest on the show Olena Rozvadovska. Olena is a Ukrainian children's rights advocate and co-founder of Voices of Children. Voices of Children is an organization that provides psychological support to children affected by Russia's war against Ukraine. Welcome to the podcast Olena.

00:00:45: Thank you so much. Thank you for your invitation.

00:00:49: Thanks for joining us today. In 2015, after war struck Ukraine in 2014 for the first time, you left your job and moved to the gray zone to help and to volunteer with children. What compelled you to make that decision?

00:01:04: Because of my background as a child rights advocate and protection of children's rights. It was very obvious when the war started, when the anti-terroristic operation firstly started in Ukraine in 2014, it was more than 10 years ago, can you imagine? After the annexation of Crimea. So, it was a very, back in that time, a big frustration because nobody from us was ready, was prepared to work in a conflict zone and to work and to protect children affected by military operations, anti-terroristic operation, by occupation. So, Crimea is a huge territory and Donetsk and Luhansk Oblast, it's a huge territory with the population. Around one million of the children. So, we understood that so many children were affected by this occupation and invasion. So it was very obvious that we don't know in practice how to protect them. We have a lot of conventions, the Geneva conventions. We have a lot of international documents, but how should it work in reality was unclear. Do we have to evacuate all the children from Donetsk and Luhansk and eastern Ukraine? And it's a huge number of cities and people. Do we have to evacuate them somewhere? How do they continue to go to school? Like, yeah, it was a huge moment of frustration and understanding that we have theory, but we don't have a practice. So, with the time, I understood that I must know by myself what does it mean to be a child living in the war zone and living in cities and villages by the front line and with a block posts, with check posts, with the soldiers. How it influenced them having separated families and so on. So, it was just a simple professional interest. And yes, I like to do everything on practice. So, I couldn't stay just in Kyiv and just receive reports about what is going on there. It was my understanding that we have to have this practical experience with children. In the beginning I thought that I will move maybe for one, two, three months and we'll meet children, we'll see villages, we will see what's going on there, why don't they left the cities, how do they go to school, how do they spend their free time, but it turned into five years, because it turned out that it's not very simple and that's not very easy to get experience of war within two, three days, you know, for one month. And I was shocked how just a huge number of number of children was living in the cities and villages heavily affected by military actions, war actions, I don't know, by land mines, minefield, by, the military. And it influenced everything, their free time, their school time, their parents, their family. So, it was obvious that I better do something concrete on the ground than stay somewhere in the capital.

00:04:41: And how did like this experience of living, you know, so close to the frontline shape you personally? You know, what influence did it have on you personally.

00:04:52: Yes, it's always influenced very personally. Every human who has experienced war, like it's something that you can never forget or continue to live without this experience of war. It's something that stays with you and changes you forever. First of all, you start to think about important things in your life. Second, I start thinking in the situation like you never have time, you never have a plan. You're always thinking only about to stay safe and to stay alive. It's a... It's also showed me a lot of meaningful things, and it gives me so much understanding of childhood, of children, of their understanding of war, because being an adult, I was 30 with something back that time. Yeah, now I'm 40, so it was 2015, so I was soldier with something. And in this age, you see the war from one perspective. But when you meet a 10-year boy or 7-year girl, you just communicate with them and play with them and have a time with them. Like, sooner or later, you start to talk about the war. What do they see around them? How do they react? And it just gives that understanding of children's views on this on the example. Like usually when I came in some village and it's isolated, very close to the front line, sometimes it could be electricity cutting for weeks, like no nothing, like no kind of leisure for children, just the gray, gray streets with the block posts, with the field. You're not allowed to go anywhere, you just... And this is what the adults see. This is what I see. And I see, oh my God, what a huge depression, how children can live here. Why do these parents are staying live with them here? And then when you meet children, they will ask you: "Hi, hey, hi Lena, we just go now to play outside. We just want to go to play with the snow and we are building some castles there." And I seen that they, like, anyway, their paradigm and perspective is totally different. It doesn't mean that they don't see nothing, they don' understand nothing, they're stupid or something. No, it just like gives that, you know, that feeling of living one day. You don't know what will be tomorrow and you are not crying on your destiny. You're not. You know, praying God, why you are so unlucky. You just use your day. And if you have a snow, why don't you play snow? No matter what happening like around, you know? So, this is what really children give me that understanding that they are so present in the moment. And it's so important for surviving to be present at the moments. To use any time for just to, I don't know, just to be, just to do what you want to do and continue to play. And this also gives me that understanding that children always, the game, the play, it's the best way to interact with children, to communicate with children. And any kind of game or play really gives them. You like do these connections with the children and they continue to play no matter what is going on outside. So, I always use some games or play with children. But from our adult point of view, it could be seen that they need food, hygiene kit, and some, and I don't know, cash for parents. Yes, they also need it, but their inner needs are so much deeper and... Every time I bring some stuff for these villages, some hygiene kit or some humanitarian because I did a lot of this humanitarian support, volunteering work for these families. We brought a lot of stuff and things. But children will always ask you, will you come tomorrow? When will you come next time? And it shows me that they really need communication. They really need time with somebody who really sees them.

00:09:33: I assume you know many people there, especially many children in territories, in villages in eastern Ukraine who were back in 2015 when you started your work, territory controlled by the Ukrainian army and by now in 2025 that this territory got occupied by the Russian army. How is that for you personally to know people on such a deep level who are now living Russian occupation. Can you tell us about that?

00:10:06: Yeah, all these villages where I was working till the full-scale invasion there, all of them are now destroyed or occupied or not exist anymore. Most of the families and children, I knew they fled, they left, and for most of them we helped. To evacuate because they were already, they were living in the frontline areas, but they didn't want to live under the occupation. So, their position was very clear, and they were even before the full-scale invasion it was a danger frontline area, but at least it was under Ukrainian control. With the full-scale invasion most of the people and families I know they fled. Some of them, some of the children that I met and that back then ten, nine, eight years ago. They already grew up; they are now adults. And they are, some of them are continuing to work in our foundation. In some of the villages we created our spaces where we spent the time with the children and now everything is destroyed. And for a moment it was tough because everything you created, everything is destroyed. But for now, I understand that the most important thing that happened is that we had this time together and children anyway have happy moments from those years.

00:11:34: Thank you so much for sharing your experience with the families in those villages who are unfortunately not any more under control of the Ukrainian army. More than three years into the full-scale invasion, UNICEF warns of a looming mental health crisis among young people in Ukraine, among children in Ukraine. Nearly one-third of Ukrainian teenagers feel persistently sad or hopeless, from your perspective, what is the overall psychological state of Ukrainian children right now from your experience.

00:12:10: Yeah, what we see now, the picture is devastating because we and the children continue to live in a situation of everyday traumatizing experience, already three years. And what's really do this, make this very hard to work with this trauma because for example, you could work with a child with, for example, he was scared about some bombing, and he had a panic attack, and he went through some period of consultation with our psychologists and now he's mentally fine. And again, another bombarding happened and he's again coming back to our psychologist with the again flashbacks and with the request for to work. So, it's something that like the situation is that the number of those children who the support. Is so huge. It's much more than our organization can provide. Like all our organizations inside of Ukraine can provide, it's just impossible because it's millions of children. But even with those with whom we work already, like it does not mean that this child will not come back to us because we continue to live in a situation of war, in the situation of attacking the civilian objects and residential buildings and you can watch it. From the news like every day and this is what makes it very difficult and so regarding the requests of children yes a lot of requests from teenagers about depression about one of the top requests from teenagers is that : "I'm afraid of my future I don't understand what to expect from my future." And this anxiety comes from there because they don't understand what to do. Where they have to go to study, where will they live even, maybe their parents will decide to change the city and it creates, and also they are, you know, they are separated from their friends because so many children like fled the country with the families or changed the place of living, or they are those who are now internally displaced families. And they must adopt in a new area. So, it creates so much, so many anxieties and stress and frustration for them. Also, younger, young children, very, very young children like age of three, four, five, six, seven, there are children that never enter school even. They had only online classes, because, for example, there was COVID in the beginning, so all the schools were online, after it was a short period of ending of quarantine, and the full-scale invasion started, so they didn't have the time to come back to school, like they already continued to study online, so for four years, some of the children have never been in a physical school. And they never have seen in a physical life their classmates. And just, I just recently came back from Mykolaiv. It's a city in the south of Ukraine next to Kherson. So, it's a frontline city also. And our psychologist told us that they have, like one of the teachers from a school, from a local school reached them because schools there are held only in online format. And she's a teacher of a fourth class, fourth class. And she said that my pupils never meet physically, never. They study only online. So can we come to your center in the weekends and like my pupils just meet each other there in your center. And so, this is also how our center works in the front lines area as a territory where you can physically see another children and physically communicate with them. And also, it creates a lot of like situations for those children who need a speech therapist, for example. It's a huge, huge number of requests for speech therapist along the front line. Because children don't go to kindergarten, they don't develop their communicational skills. They don't play outside in the yards. It can be dangerous. There are not so many children around. All the events are forbidden, so most mainly they are staying at home and they have to develop their communication skills and they now have a lot of problems with it. So, this is also how the war affects children, not in a direct way, not with a rocket, you know, but with the consequences of being isolated, of being out of school, out of communication.

00:17:27: Talking about the direct influence of the war on children's life in Ukraine, UNICEF reported that one in five children in Ukraine has lost a close relative or friend due to the war. How do such losses manifest in children you know from working with them? How does grief and trauma look like in a child differently from how it might look in an adult.

00:17:52: Yeah, yeah, it's a very painful topic. Indeed, a lot of children are lost to their fathers, mainly fathers in the army. It can be also not soldiers, but civilians who were killed by some rocket attack. But mainly it's children who lost their father or mother if they served in the me. Yeah, it's indeed a very painful experience and it depends on the age. In our practice, in our centers, we have a lot of this type of requests from children and mothers. First of all, it's very hard for a mother because she's also in grief for her husband and she doesn't have time for her children. So, very often children are by themselves with this pain. And then... Like we really met very different situations. Sometimes, yeah, sometimes children don't understand why father left them and never come back. Sometimes they don't believe. For example, if their father, there is no missing in the bottle, like it's something that you don't see the body. You don't have a place where you can come and to grieve. And you just don't and you are living for years with a very with a dream that maybe one day he would come back he will come back but nobody can prove it to you and you don't know whether it will happen maybe it will never happen but still you don't have a place where you can come and for your father. Like it turns into the conflict inside of the families because, for example, they can really don't understand, they can show different emotions and relatives around don't have enough of resilience and, you know, space for also respond to these emotions because the whole family traumatized. And yes, in general, I would say that it's one of the biggest, biggest problems for Ukrainian children now in this situation. From our perspective, our psychologists are working with these cases and with children. But just recently, I also met a boy in this town, Mykolaiv, I had mentioned before, and he came for counseling with our psychologists and his grandmother. And his grandmother brought him to our center. And when the boy already left with the psychologist to the room, like she said that his father and mother are serving in the army both, and he lived with the grandmother in Mykolaiv. And she said like they are fine, they didn't die, thankfully, but even that they are there every day, like he's having very hard time. Like with his emotions, with his stress every day. And so she has to take him to the psychologist once a week because like she said that she cannot handle with his stress and even physical reactions he has like with his body. Yes, and it just. Yeah, it creates for children so much, so many challenges. So I think it's.

00:21:20: What gives you like strength, Olena, like seeing all this pain, seeing like all these children in need, you know, of psychological help, what gives you personally like strength not to give up, you now, like, seeing, like all of these children in needs?

00:21:36: No, no, no. We don't have a right to give up. It's just like very first that there is not another choice. Like doing at least something, it's I don't feel myself helpless. Like we have to do something and it really saves our lives that we at least can do something. So this is what gives us a strength and you know, possibility to continue to work even that every day it's really harsh. Every day there are bombing of cities, where in all of the cities we have our centers and every morning starts with: "Is everybody from our team alive?" You know, sometimes it sounds really like not normal, it's completely not normal. But it's better than do nothing and then what? Why do I have to leave my country and... To not to continue to fight. So, I think that the biggest strength of Ukrainian and resilient is that we have to do something, and this is just that we don't have another choice. Like you are not thinking, okay, maybe I should look for work somewhere else. It just impossible if you really are. And like, you know, there is no family in Ukraine that does not have connections to the army or to this war, you know. So, in every family you will have a relative who serves in the army. So, like, you cannot stay, you don't like, you know, without any connections. You know, this is war not about me. You cannot, if you are living in Ukraine, you in any way, you are connected to this war or somebody from your family. Serving in the army or somebody from your family fled Ukraine or become an internally displaced person or lost something. So, this is what's happening with us. So, it's not that me helping poor children. It's we inside of this war helping each other. These children help me not to get crazy that this world is getting crazy. And I help these children with what I can to provide the, I don't know, support and help and other things and give them voice that at least they during their childhood will see not only the war.

00:24:12: What will you say when a person is listening to this podcast? What would be the best way to support children in Ukraine suffering due to the war?

00:24:23: Firstly, I would like to say thanks to all of the people from around the world that have already helped so much to Ukraine. And we as our Foundation Voices of Children, we received so much support from people all over the world. So, first of all, it's a big thanks to all of the regular people who don't know us but feel sad about the situation in Ukraine. And to help children, it's important because children are those who will live tomorrow and we want them to grow up, prosper, and be good adults that will decide our future. And this is so much important. This is why it's so important to help the children today. You know, sometimes we can think that, okay, they are young now, they don't understand. Maybe in ten years we will have some plan, and they will grow up and then we will help them. It doesn't work like this, because they grew up in those circumstances and with that support that they have today. If today they will not have nothing, so I'm very afraid that we will have a failed state and like with the adults that totally traumatized without any future. And also, why is it so important? Because war never has boundaries. Yes, it has now physical boundaries. Bombings and shelling are only inside of Ukraine, but it creates so much, so much pain and ruins the families and destinies that it's far more inside of the Ukraine. It reflects on neighbors, on everybody. These, these souls with a, you know, ruined by war, they can be also some next to you in your country somewhere. And you can be that person that can help somehow to those children or families. Because you, know, once a person is hurt, and if they don't have a support and relief and some kind of help, I don't know what they will create. We will have around us only people who were hurt, only pain. But we want a different world. We are fighting to live in a better world. So, what costs our war if we in the end will have only a broken country and helpless people? Like we are fighting to have a better future. So that's why it's so important to invest in the children everything possible today that our price of our war will not be so high, you know? And yes, and it's also why it's important the solidarity of international community, because it's importance to speak in 21st century that it cannot continue like this, that one big empire in the past and big country can just step in another neighborhood independent, neighbor independent country and kill all of the citizens of this, all of the people of this country just because they don't like some of our policies or something. So, it just cannot happen like this. So, it's very important also to show the children the example that we are fighting for our values, for them, for their flag, for them for their cities and for this identity when you are not ashamed to call yourself Ukrainian. Because you did everything to save this heritage to your children. So that's why for us it's very important, the solidarity of whole Europe, because the war don't have boundaries. Regarding to Russia, it's even physical, it doesn't even have boundaries, sometimes I'm thinking that it's only a matter of time when they continue their war, far more than in Ukraine, because it's just their national policy to ruin everything around them.

00:28:49: It sounds like you're personally not very optimistic that the war will end anytime soon. Did I understand you correctly?

00:28:57: You know, I'm optimistic about some kind of peace agreements or some kind of ceasefire, but it's so hard to finish the war. What does it mean to finish the war? To end the war, what does it mean? It's a question for us. What does it mean? Russia will never take any kind of conditions that we like to take. It's just impossible until Russia as a country exist because their national policy is to ruin Ukraine. And, it's easy to start the war, but it's impossible to finish the war. Because for every person, the price of this war is so individual. Somebody lost their husband. Somebody lost parts of their body, I don't know, an arm, a leg. Somebody lost the possibility to live in their hometown and, I don’t know, lost everything. Like for everybody, it's such an individual price of this war and in one day for everybody will be the end of the war acceptable for everybody it's impossible there is not even you know you cannot return everything back. Millions of people are without homes and the thousands of cities destroyed to the scratch like to nothing. So how it can be returned and like you know we are okay we have finished the war. Done! Let's go continue to live. It turned our lives forever. The child who lost its father it turned even after finish of the war it turned her life changed her life forever. Those children who've been deported to Russia. Even after they come back to... Coming back to Ukraine, it changed, it influenced them for their lives, like forever. So, the war, the consequences of war will stay with us till the end of our lives. And so, it's some, so it is, you know, we are inside of Ukraine, we don't even think about these definitions of finishing the war. Yeah, we are thinking about definitions. Please stop bombing us every night! Because you know it's impossible to live with all this shelling and, but we continue to live. People continue to celebrate birthdays you know we continue, to deliver babies, to give birth to babies, to get married. Life is continuing as normal just during the war. But it will be paradise for us is if we just will have a less air sirens and air attack and killing of civilians every day, it would be already a paradise. But what next? How Russia will pay a fair price for all these ruins they caused in Ukraine, you know? After the end of the war, there will be another question, and now what? Okay, what we will forgive them, or what will the tribunal be, or something? We know that this is not an easy question, you now, and all this previous wars and conflicts show us that it can happen after decades, you know, these tribunals and all of this. So it stays, it will stay with us, like for me personally, I understand that all of my professional career will be connected with the topic of war, no matter whether it will be ceasefire or it will continuing of a war, that we would have, we already have so much challenges and problems that it is enough until the end of our lives to work with it.

00:32:45: What would you say, what is the most urgent question for you at the very moment? Is it to find enough funding for Voices of Children or is it to find enough experts maybe, you know, who can give psychological support to children? What is the most urgent need for you, at the very moment.

00:33:03: At the very moment, the most urgent need is finance, because we already have so many experts inside of the country. Our psychologists, I'm sure they have that expertise that maybe not so many experts from abroad can have, because we are working in a field, and we have a lot of supporters from expertise side from abroad. We have our colleagues from Sweden, from the USA, from Norway. We always have a supervision with them. Yeah, but finance and in terms of this cutting of American, USAID, and American grants, it has really hurt a lot of our NGOs. And yes, I would add that this is a big challenge. Yeah, because our government doesn't have this money. You know, all our economics inside the country works for the army, and it's understandable. So NGO and charity sector are existing like 99% because of individual fundraise like funds from Europe and from other countries, those foundations that give grants.

00:34:12: Let me come to my final question. Thank you very much. I hope that people will, you know, help with the funding, like people who listen to this podcast will hopefully help with funding Voice of Children, at least part of your work. Let me go to my last question. Talking to people in Ukraine, volunteering, working with people who are dearly in need of help, how do you personally cope with the emotional weight of your job? What can you do for yourself that you can provide help to others. What gives you sanity in this absolute insane surrounding.

00:34:49: Yeah, for me it just became the normality. I think that sometimes when I travel abroad, I feel very bored because, you know, by what? Nothing happens? Where are the challenges? It's just something that I don't know. In the beginning it was very hard, and I burned out 400 times and I'm in a psychotherapy like always constant. I just know now my routine, what I'm doing in my inside, in my normality to keep myself in a good condition without depression and without burnout and I'm now on the seventh month of a pregnancy and I feel perfect, and I travel around Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv. I feel myself without any kind of stress, I don't know, it's just something that, like, when you are inside, what can you afraid, I don’t know. When you are watching from somewhere far away, you can really think, oh my god, how it's possible. But when you're already inside of this box, like there is not another choice, like continue to live and use our chance for this life in a better, in the best way for me, for my family, for us. And children teach me also a lot to take every day as a chance to make this day the best day of your life and to be present now it's very important being inside of the war. The worst situation and I see a lot of burnout and stress among my colleagues. When you are hoping every day that it will finish soon, it will finish soon, it will finish soon, and then I will start to live, then everything changes and I will continue to dream, I don't know, to do something. But it's a very wrong idea because it just creates, contains stress inside of you because it may never finish. But your life, one day will finish definitely. So, to concentrate only on your life and what is it possible. And I am not in the worst position possible. The soldiers in the frontline are in a much, much, much harder position. Children who are living in a front-line village are in much harder positions than me in Kyiv. So, it gives me like not any even chance to think that I'm weak or something. You just do your job and live your life and that's all.

00:37:35: Thank you so much, Olena, for joining us on Yak ty? Ukraine Live, and congratulations to your pregnancy and only the best for you and your child.

00:37:48: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much for your invitation.