Schools for Democracy: Strengthening Democratic Resilience through Education 

We support democratic reforms in the Ukrainian education by promoting democratic and inclusive schools to educate active and resilient citizens. We train teachers, school heads and teacher trainers to foster democratic citizenship and critical thinking, counter exclusion, hate speech, fake news and disinformation, and encourage youth participation at school and in the local communities.  

Working in partnership with national and local education authorities as well as international experts, we will aim to support democratic institutional development of 60 schools, train 70 000 teachers and 120 school administrators in targeted training programs, reaching out to 90000 children and young people. 

To foster democratic competences since early childhood, we help Ukrainian kindergartens introduce democratic governance, shape inclusive environments, enhance child participation and increase focus on free play by offering training, mentorship and networking opportunities. 

We will work to train 3000 preschool teachers on how to use democratic teaching methods in early childhood education and support democratic changes in 30 kindergartens. 

To support and facilitate youth participation, we will support democratic youth policies recently introduced in Ukraine. We will train young people and youth workers and will support development and implementation of youth projects aimed at recovery of their local communities.  

To this end, we will strengthen capacity of 30 youth centers, train 800 youth workers and 1000 young people to foster active citizenship, develop and manage projects, and participate in local democracy. 

We will offer training for teachers and support 40 schools in building an inclusive school environment for all. Guided by specially trained experts, school teams will introduce democratic changes in school governance, teaching and learning, and their cooperation with the local community in order to prevent exclusion and hate speech. Inclusion of vulnerable groups like Ukrainian refugee children, and children from other vulnerable groups will be embraced.