On April 5, 2022, the Gondviselés (in English: Providence) Charity Organization of the Hungarian Unitarian Church launched a kindergarten class for 22 Ukrainian refugee children within the premises of the Hungarian Unitarian Church's Nursery School in Kolozsvár/Cluj. The contributions that Gondviselés received from various donors following the onset of the war – including funds raised by ICUUW through Faithify crowd funding and share-the-plate contributions – covered the cost to hire a certified kindergarten teacher and to provide a daily breakfast and warm lunch for the children.
In June 2022, an elementary class started operating in the János Zsigmond Unitarian High School. The classes included reading and writing in Ukrainian, math, English, music, physical education, as well as arts and crafts. The refugee children also received a warm meal daily. Through this initiative, Gondviselés filled a critical void not provided by the Romanian government: 22 school-age children learned to read and write in Ukrainian Cyrillic, in accordance with the national curriculum of Ukraine.
In September 2022, Gondviselés had to move both groups to rental facilities due to lack of sufficient cost-free space provided by the Unitarian Church.
The operation of the kindergarten group and the elementary class cost a total of approximately $6,000 USD/month, including the salary of Ukrainian teachers (1 kindergarten teacher and 2 elementary class teachers), rental fees, a daily warm meal for 44 children and 3 teachers, educational materials, and so on.
Thanks to your generous donations, in 2023 ICUUW raised over $10,000, giving an opportunity for these Ukrainian refugee children to learn, thrive, and begin to recover and heal. This one-of-a-kind program will also help them integrate seamlessly into the Ukrainian school system once the war is over.
Ukrainian refugee Elena Toloknovskaya and her daughter Daria talked about their experiences of the elementary school program run by Gondviselés: