UKRAINE SPEAKS ENGLISH

BE A VOLUNTEER BE A VOLUNTEER

About the project. We launched this project on February 28, 2022, in response to the full-scale Russian invasion. Initially, we organized meetings with Ukrainian teachers and students, as schools were closed then. We aimed to establish a connection and provide a safe space for students to distract from the challenging reality.

On March 14, 2022, we expanded our efforts by conducting our first meeting with English-speaking volunteers from abroad. We have focused solely on English-speaking meetings since the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year.

Our aim is to provide free English-speaking meetings for Ukrainian children, not only to enhance language skills but to show support from all over the globe, to give a safe space and community, and to offer opportunities for acquiring new knowledge and engaging in enjoyable activities.

We engaged 170 teachers+ – volunteers from Canada, Australia, Portugal, Austria, Turkey, USA, Spain, Japan, Іndia.

Types of activities. Our lessons are divided into categories depending on the complexity and the presence of academic components.

From February 2022 to September 2024:

2,030 open lessons
23 courses with registration for children
71,420 joins
170 volunteers

For 2023:

more than 31 000 students joined the lessons;
conducted 930 lessons;
organized 20 spoken English courses in schools with volunteers.

We conduct not only lessons but several types of meetings:

lessons with teachers
sessions with experts and famous presenter
meeting with speakers on different topics
English-speaking clubs with teenage speakers.

We also do a lot to spread awareness of our classes and involve more Ukrainian students: Telegram channel, created for the meeting announcement, with 11 500+ subscribers; announcements on NUS, our media about education with 500,000+ unique visitors monthly; announcements on our Facebook page with 16,000+ followers.

Our famous presenters

Chris Hadfield, astronaut
Bob McDonald, science journalist
Chris Pilsworth, magician
Sergio Navaretta, film producer
Tim Rademacher, scientist
Martin Parnell, marathon runner, multi-Guinness world record holder

Partnership with Classroom Without Walls began in March 2022 when David Falconer-Kölle responded to an email from Smart Osvita in Kyiv, inviting international teachers to deliver free online lessons for internally displaced students in Ukraine. Over 60 Canadian volunteers joined as teachers, all coordinated by David, supporting the efforts of Smart Osvita. In late 2022, David Falconer-Kölle and Margit Mueller co-founded Classrooms Without Walls NGO, providing online education access to children in conflict zones. CWW manages four programs: Teachers for Ukraine, Teachers for Myanmar, Teachers for Afghanistan, and the Winds of Change International Leadership Youth Group. The vision of Classroom Without Walls: Ensuring the right to education for all children.

Partners:

Global Giving
ChildFund Deutschland;
principal of one of the Canadian schools, David Falconer, and Margit Muller, co-founders of the NGO “Classrooms Without Walls”;
Ocean Wise;
Edmonton Public Library.

Start: March 2022.

Feedback from participants of the project “Educational meetings in English with foreign teachers”: http://bit.ly/3ln7dxP