At 29 stations of the Kharkiv metro there are special corners for children and teenagers - here you can play, spend leisure time, attend classes with psychologists, art therapists, animators, etc. To do this, toys and various materials for creativity and development were delivered to the station.

In more than two weeks, specialists and volunteers held more than 600 workshops and various events at the metro stations. These are board, motor, sports games, classes in drawing, modeling, origami, appliqués, theatricalization and toy creation, mathematics lessons, language learning and many other activities.

Arrangement of children's corners in the metro is part of the project to create Relief Centers, which is implemented by the Kharkiv Professional Development Foundation in cooperation with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

The aim of the project is to support parents with children and adolescents who are evacuated to a safer place or remain in a shelter. Aid Centers will be created for them on the basis of the existing coordination headquarters for displaced persons. They will be located in Kharkiv, Poltava, Kremenchug, Svitlovodsk, Kropyvnytskyi and other regions of Ukraine. Thanks to them, parents will be able to plan safe evacuation routes taking into account the needs of children and adolescents. In the Centers, they will be provided with specialized services and humanitarian assistance. They will receive clean drinking water, hygiene products, food, as well as other services:

• consultation of a psychologist;
• emotional assistance and art therapy;
• classes to support breastfeeding;
• classes with teachers to prevent educational failure;
• access to the Internet and other information to support children and adolescents.

All Centers are united into a network that coordinates the delivery of humanitarian aid, holding events and informing parents.

“Due to the war, the metro in Kharkiv has become a place that actually replaces the people of the city with their homes. It is especially difficult now for children and parents who are in extremely stressful and emotionally exhausting conditions. At this time, it is more important than ever to create a safe place for children and their parents for development and psychological unloading. At the metro stations there are now a total of more than 1200 children under 15 years old, which further emphasizes the relevance of such an initiative”, — Marina Ladyzhenska, project coordinator.