The wide range of activities organized by the network of UNESCO ASPnet schools in solidarity with Ukraine began on the first day of Russia’s war of aggression in February 2022 with demonstrations and educational activities against the war. After the first year of the war, the German Commission for UNESCO published the UNESCO Project Schools’ peace newspaper.
With support from the Federal Foreign Office and the Hertie Foundation, the German UNESCO Commission’s Recreation Project has already enabled more than 250 students from Ukraine, along with their teachers, to take part in three-week recreational stays at UNESCO ASPnet schools in Germany in 2023 and 2024. The project began in 2022 with a pilot visit by a group of 14 students and two teachers from the UNESCO ASPnet school in Zhytomyr—which had been destroyed in a Russian attack—who were hosted at Burghardt-Gymnasium in Buchen in the Odenwald. In 2023, 2024, and 2025, 15 additional groups followed, spending memorable weeks in various locations across Germany with children and young people from their partner schools and gaining countless new experiences.
The programs for the individual recreational and exchange projects are organized on site by the host UNESCO ASPnet schools. Particular emphasis is placed on cultural education and joint creative projects. The Recreation Program is being implemented in close collaboration with the Ukrainian National Commission for UNESCO and receives technical support from additional partners, including the Center for Trauma and Conflict Management and the UNESCO Chair in Digital Culture and Art in Education at Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen.
Prof. Dr. Maria Böhmer, President of the German National Commission for UNESCO
“The project builds bridges and strengthens European cohesion. Through close collaboration with our UNESCO project schools, we offer Ukrainian youth a safe space for interaction and recreation. This exchange fosters mutual understanding. I am therefore particularly pleased that we are able to continue the project this year as well. In this way, we are putting solidarity into practice in a very concrete way during times of war.”
