海角大神

Nikita Sapiha likes to remember that his dad had 鈥済olden hands鈥� 鈥� he could repair just about anything friends and family brought to him to fix.

He also used those hands to make things. 鈥淚 learned from my father to work with wood,鈥� says the 11-year-old, sporting a summer-season buzz cut and a Vans T-shirt. Brightening, he adds, 鈥淗e also taught me to play soccer. He did a lot.鈥�

Nikita speaks in the past tense because his father was killed last September when he stepped on a mine. He had volunteered for the Ukrainian army after Russia invaded in February 2022.

Nikita likes to remember all the good things his father taught him, but sometimes he gets sad when he thinks about what he鈥檒l miss out on. 鈥淢y father really liked to fish,鈥� he says, 鈥渁nd he always told me that someday he鈥檇 teach me to be a good fisherman.鈥�

Learning to confront and deal with emotions like sadness and loss is one reason Nikita is attending a special summer camp. For two weeks he is living with other children affected by the war 鈥� kids displaced from their homes by the fighting, others whose soldier-parents are off on the front lines, and still others who, like him, have already lost a father or mother.

鈥淲e know our kids are dealing with a lot, this has been a difficult year for everybody in Ukraine. But for children, the impact of this war can be especially hard,鈥� says Tetiana Myalkovska, camp director and manager of the Warm Palms regional project that oversees the camp, located at a retreat center for Polish Catholic priests in the Volyn region of northwestern Ukraine.

Giving Nikita a big hug and a peck on the head, she adds, 鈥淚t鈥檚 important for these kids to have fun and be kids while they are here, but we also want to help them learn to face the difficulties they are going through.鈥�

The Warm Palms camp is one of a new crop of initiatives across Ukraine this summer to help kids cope with the war鈥檚 impact 鈥� and to allow them to enjoy the months off from school as much as kids anywhere.

Last summer, just a few months into the war, uprooted families were still scrambling for safer living conditions in or out of the country, and schools and educators were more focused on ensuring that the coming school year could open in September as normally and safely as possible.

Providing services over the summer months to help children cope with the impacts of war was not a top priority.

But a year later, the reality is setting in of a long slog ahead for Ukraine, millions of displaced families are getting to know new communities, and officials are estimating there are thousands of children like Nikita who have lost at least one parent in the fighting. In response, a variety of children鈥檚 welfare groups and individuals have turned to making summer a fun and healing time.

鈥淚t鈥檚 really important for kids to have childhood during war,鈥� says Inga Kordynovska, who practices family law in Odesa and who decided last winter that summer would bring with it a great need for new kinds of children鈥檚 services. She set out to do what she could to fill a sliver of that need.

The result is the Sandbox Kids day camp in one of Odesa鈥檚 most cherished green spaces.

The Green Theater in Shevchenko Park has been closed for years 鈥� first because of the pandemic, then as a result of the war and concerns that any regular gatherings of large numbers of people could be targets of Russian missiles.

But Ms. Kordynovska saw the sprawling theater, with its extensive tree cover, stages once used for experimental theatrical productions, and open areas designed for picnics and food trucks, as the perfect setting for an urban summer day camp. And as the managing partner of her law firm, she had the city and corporate connections to make Sandbox Kids a reality.

Now, every day, Sandbox Kids operates for eight hours, with morning and afternoon four-hour sessions. Priority is given to the children of parents on the front lines, the children of volunteers for military service, and then to the internally displaced. Parents are asked to contribute to the cost of running the camp if they can, but no one is turned away.

On a recent camp day, a couple dozen kids are on hand, some at an arts and crafts table, some dancing to a TikTok video, others learning the rules of a field game.

鈥淢any of the kids don鈥檛 want to talk much about the feelings they are dealing with, but sometimes it can be expressed in their artwork,鈥� says Ms. Kordynovska, who has an art therapist and a child psychologist on staff.

鈥淪ome kids are traumatized by what they鈥檝e experienced, some are depressed, and some are just plain angry,鈥� she says. 鈥淭hat anger especially can be expressed with bad behavior, so we find ways to address that.鈥�

One particularly wrenching case was that of a boy from the Luhansk region, where heavy fighting had destroyed his school and shattered his family.

鈥淲hen he started coming to the camp, he wouldn鈥檛 speak to anyone; he just wanted to sit by himself in our internet zone,鈥� Ms. Kordynovska says. 鈥淲hat gave us hope, though, was that he kept coming, day after day.鈥�

The camp staff worked with the boy, letting him know everyone cared about him and wanted to help him have some fun. 鈥淧retty soon he was using a word here or there with the other children; then he started speaking with all of us,鈥� she says. Beaming, she adds, 鈥淏y the end of the [session] we couldn鈥檛 get him to stop talking!鈥�

A key feature of Sandbox Kids camp is its emphasis on Ukrainian language and culture.

鈥淚n Odesa, and especially in areas closest to Russia, we are confronting 200 years of efforts to cancel Ukrainian culture, to replace Ukrainian with the Russian language,鈥� Ms. Kordynovska says. 鈥淎ll the children have heard that Ukraine is not a nation, that Russian is our true language,鈥� she adds. 鈥淲e want to battle these ideas with books and activities that instead say, 鈥業t鈥檚 really cool to be part of Ukrainian culture!鈥欌��

Like dancing to TikTok videos of popular Ukrainian songs.

Some of Ukraine鈥檚 summer camps are able to operate at least in part with foreign charitable or humanitarian funding. The Warm Palms camp gets some assistance from a church group in Pittsburgh. The Dissent Pins social action website based in Pennsylvania is helping to fund efforts to get a summer camp up and running in the Kyiv area.

Ms. Kordynovska in Odesa says that while she appreciates the assistance foreigners have provided to some summer camps, she is sticking to her vision of Sandbox Kids 鈥� which she hopes to expand beyond Odesa 鈥� as a project by Ukrainians for Ukrainians.

鈥淓veryone I鈥檝e contacted for some form of help with this project, their answer has always been 鈥榊es!鈥欌�� 鈥� whether permission from one of Odesa鈥檚 largest corporations to use the Green Theater, donations of supplies, or professionals helping out, she says. 鈥淚 want the camp to be an expression of Ukraine as a nation of 鈥榊es!鈥欌��

Back at the Warm Palms camp, Ms. Myalkovska and her staff of coaches, therapists, teenage junior camp counselors, and beloved Father Jan聽鈥撀爐he director of the priests鈥� retreat聽鈥� are preparing for a new challenge: For one of the August sessions, the camp expects to receive a number of Ukrainian children who were abducted by Russia from occupied areas of the country. Ukrainian authorities estimate that a few hundred out of perhaps thousands of abducted children have returned home.

Yet while these children might have particular needs, Ms. Myalkovska says she鈥檚 confident the range of cases the camp has served has prepared it to embrace this new group.

She notes for example that a number of this summer鈥檚 campers have been from Bakhmut, the southeastern city virtually destroyed in months of intense battle before Russian troops finally claimed it.

One of those kids is 13-year-old Yesenia Zabashta, who was displaced from her home in Bakhmut a year ago.

Yesenia likes to paint, loves animals, and favors pretty dresses. But she takes out her anger at the world by bullying other girls 鈥� in one case so mercilessly that the girl chose to leave camp early.

Still, Warm Palms has not given up on Yesenia, a reflection of Ms. Myalkovska鈥檚 conviction that all of Ukraine鈥檚 children traumatized by the war can be helped and loved to exit whatever darkness besets them.

And Yesenia says the camp is helping her understand and stifle a trait she wants to banish.

鈥淲e鈥檙e working on the bullying,鈥� she says, a tear rolling down her cheek. 鈥淎nd now I have good friends among the girls in my room.鈥�

Reporting for this story was supported by Oleksandr Naselenko.