Olena Zelenska Foundation joins the creation of six new Superhero Schools in Ukraine in 2024

The newly established institutions will be located at hospitals in Vinnytsia, Kryvyi Rih, Rivne, Lviv, Odesa, and Poltava.

Superhero Schools are modern educational spaces for children who are forced to stay in hospitals for a long time.

Currently, there are 11 such schools operating in Ukraine. In 2023, more than 10,000 children studied there, and took nearly 80,000 lessons. More than a third of the sessions took place live in areas close to the front line – in Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, and Mykolaiv regions.

The first Superhero School was opened in Kyiv back in 2016 at the initiative of the public organization "Little Heart with Art". And in 2021 these institutions came under the patronage of the First Lady.

"Brave and courageous superheroes study in these schools. Battling illnesses, these children often spend months or even years in hospitals. Our job as adults is to help them not lose the time they could have spent learning if they were healthy. It's important for children to have access to education no matter what, and to understand that they are not alone in their fight against disease," says Olena Zelenska, First Lady and Founder of the Foundation.

Thanks to the support of the First Lady, in 2022, the Superhero School project received state support and began operating as a state institution.

Since 2024, Olena Zelenska Foundation joined the creation of new Superhero Schools.

"The Foundation's participation in the Superheroes School project is at the intersection of two areas of our activity - healthcare and education. We are grateful to every international partner who continues to support Ukraine and who gives us the opportunity to improve the quality of life of our children during the war," says Nina Horbachova, director of the Foundation.

Like all children, superheroes in hospitals have the right to education. For them, education is not just an opportunity to acquire knowledge. Daily classes with experienced teachers and psychologists allow them to distract from exhausting treatment and continue to develop and explore the world even within hospital walls.

Every day we have to bring back childhood and interest in learning to children, even in the hospital. We must teach them to dream without limits and to overcome their fears. At the same time, our goal is to have a modern, ergonomic educational space in every Ukrainian hospital and to provide access to quality education for every little patient. Superhero School is not just a project, it is a big team of teachers, educators, psychologists, doctors and parents. We are grateful for the support and we are very happy that the circle of our children's friends is growing," says Natalia Zhylinska, head of the state institution Superhero School.