Talented Ukrainian teenage students are in peril. Currently, over 5 million of Ukraine’s 7.5 million students have been forced to relocate, with over 1 million becoming refugees abroad. Two years of the full scale invasion come right after the two years of COVID pandemics, when many kids missed out on the normal school process.
The war added a new, often overlooked aspect to the problem: an almost complete void in popular science books and videos in Ukrainian language. Until recently, Russian books and websites were widely available in Ukraine. Since the popular science market is relatively small and low-profit, it was completely dominated by books and videos in Russian.
As the war goes on, Ukrainian students, teachers and parents become more and more traumatized by anything related to the aggressor. They do not want to use the Russian language or books with Russian or Soviet symbols – not to mention the fact that the import of new books from Russia has stopped completely.
We risk losing an entire generation of kids who would grow up without food for their curiosity. Since the popular science books and videos are low-margin, we believe that nonprofit organizations like Nova Ukraine should come to the rescue. The cost to print a popular-science book or dub an hour-long video in Ukrainian is about $10,000. Subtitles for a video can be commissioned for less than $1,000.
Nova Ukraine plans to translate and publish several dozen books and videos on popular science (STEM, including psychology and biology) targeting children and young adults 10-17 years old who are not yet proficient in English. We already allocated $240,000 for this initiative and hope to raise much more.
We will serve not only the most gifted kids who compete in olympiads, but also the next tier, those who are potentially able to succeed in technical colleges. Our goals are to help them learn about genuine science while also strengthening their sense of community, including through common language and common reading backgrounds.
Since 2014 Nova Ukraine has funded a number of STEM classes, summer camps, vocational lectures and other activities where such children can interact. In 2023 we spent about $600,000 for such projects, and we aim to double our impact in 2024. Notably, our educational initiatives attracted support from esteemed donors, including Fields Medal winner Volodymyr Drinfeld.
You are warmly invited to join our cause as a donor or volunteer. Please, write to the user STEM at novaukraine.org
