Our back-to-school project concerns schoolchildren and their access to distance education.

The Ukrainian government's security protocol prohibits schools from accepting pupils if they do not have shelters in case of bombing alerts. A national programme was set up this summer to create shelters for all schools, but this will take time, and will not solve the problem of schools in areas close to the front line, which are simply closed. Only distance learning courses can be offered, and not all families have computers, which prevents their children from attending school.

For the start of the new school year, we have decided to help children in the Kharkiv Oblast to continue their education from a distance, by focusing on children living in "family orphanages". Family orphanages are host families for up to 10 internally displaced children, orphans or children whose parents are at the front. There are 138 family orphanages in the Kharkiv Oblast, accommodating around 900 children of all ages.

Working in France with Régis Harpocrate and the French NGO Action Numérique Solidaire (https://actionnumeriquesolidaire.org)and in Ukraine with the NGO Adults for Children (http://adultsforchildren.taplink.ws)In Ukraine, we will be providing families and children with recycled computers so that they can study in the best possible conditions. These computers are collected by Action Numérique Solidaire from French companies that are renewing their IT equipment, then reconditioned and reinstalled with Ukrainian systems.

We will be making our first shipment from the Paris region in early September, delivering them in Kharkiv to our local partner Adults for Children, who will distribute them to the final beneficiaries.

We plan to start with deliveries every two months, with the aim of rapidly moving to a monthly frequency.

We are looking for financial donations to develop this project over the long term, as well as contacts with companies that might be able to give us laptops, which are more versatile and easier to transport than desktop computers.

The budget for this 3-month project is 3,000 euros, mainly for petrol and additional equipment (e.g. Ukrainian keyboards).