2,000 Ukrainian publications transferred to educational institutions in Spain

With the assistance of the Embassy of Ukraine in the Kingdom of Spain and the Consulate General of Ukraine in Barcelona, ​​in particular Consul Oleh Hrabovskyi, 2,000 Ukrainian-language publications were transferred to educational institutions, libraries and centers where Ukrainian children study. The books were received as part of the charitable campaign “Ukrainian Children – a Ukrainian Book”, the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine informs.

The books will be distributed among institutions that work with Ukrainian children abroad every day, supporting their connection with their native language, culture and identity.

As earlier reported, the charitable campaign “Ukrainian Children – a Ukrainian Book” was initiated by the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine in March 2022 with the support of the Office of the President of Ukraine. Its goal is to provide Ukrainian children who were forced to leave their homes due to russian aggression with books in their native language. Over the years, more than a million books in Ukrainian have been donated to public libraries and educational institutions around the world, where Ukrainian families with children have found temporary protection.

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The National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU) supports and covers the charitable campaign “For Ukrainian Children — a Ukrainian Book”, launched on March 15, 2022, by the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting together with the Office of the President of Ukraine to provide displaced children with textbooks, teaching aids, and fiction. Already in March 2022, the NUJU website informed about the launch of the initiative and the mechanism for delivering books: the transport carrying humanitarian cargo was to pick up books from Kyiv on the return journey for further distribution at humanitarian aid points in Lviv, Uzhhorod, Ternopil, and other cities in western Ukraine.

The NUJU systematically drew attention to the scale of the campaign. In particular, it was reported that the first batch of educational and preschool literature amounted to 25,000 copies and was headed to Lviv for children who were forced to flee from russian aggression. Ukrainian publishing houses joined the initiative, including Kharkiv’s Folio and Ranok, the Osvita publishing house, Abetka, Knyhy XXI, and others.

Over time, the action grew into one of the largest humanitarian and cultural initiatives of wartime. The project was also scaled up in the directions of “Ukrainian Defenders – a Ukrainian Book” and “Ukrainian Youth – a European Book”. Through cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ukrainian books also reached abroad, in particular within the framework of the “Ukrainian Bookshelves”.

The practical participation of the NUJU structures was manifested, in particular, at the regional level. The Chairman of the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting, Oleg Nalyvayko, stressed the interest in cooperation with regional organizations of NUJU to promote the campaign, as well as to transfer books to military hospitals and develop related book initiatives. He especially thanked the active members of the Lviv regional organization of the NUJU for their assistance in holding the campaign “Ukrainian Children — a Ukrainian Book”.

The NUJU also promoted the campaign in its own educational and journalistic initiatives. Thus, the winners of the XVI All-Ukrainian competition “I am a journalist!” received books as part of the campaign, which, according to the NUJU, has collected over a million books for displaced children in Europe and schools in Ukraine since the first days of the war.