UN SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE SECRETARY-GENERAL VISITED THE DIGITAL EDUCATION CENTER (DLC)

In the Digital Learning Center (DLC) at the Richelieu Lyceum of Odesa, a psychosocial support training for teenagers "Support your friends" was held with the practical psychologist of the project Valentina Schaefer. 

Pupils were preparing projects, creating blueprints for a report, when distinguished guests visited the center: UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children Najat Maalla M’jid; UNICEF Representative to Ukraine, Munir Mammadzade; child protection specialist of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children Tea Machaidze; Permanent Representative of the Republic of Lithuania to the United Nations Rytis Paulauskas and representatives of the Odesa office of UNICEF.

A group of teenagers gladly shared a place in the center, the children talked about the activities in the project and together with the guests shared their own thoughts about the devourers of human resources, told what exactly accumulates their strength and motivates them to move forward.

The guests asked questions, were interested in the psychological state of the students, their opinions on improving youth assistance, and asked about everyone's plans for the future.

Communication took place in English. Everyone joked a little, but the atmosphere fully corresponded to the name of the training: "I support my friends" - this was the main point of the meeting - to find new friends, make friends and learn to recognize the need for help and provide support as needed.

This training became a bright final chord of a large annual program for teaching students of vocational and technical education institutions the skills of psycho-emotional support of themselves and their peers according to the "equal - equal" principle.

This project was implemented by the Association of Innovative and Digital Education (AIDE) together with UNICEF, with the assistance of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.

In 12 months, 8,000+ trainings were held, in which 30,000+ teenagers and 2,000+ parents took part, and 80,000+ educators have already completed the refresher course in psychological first aid.

Najat Maalla Mjit, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General on Violence against Children, after talking to the participants of the training, highly appreciated these activities and the program in general.

Having familiarized himself with the Ecosystem of making up for educational losses based on Artificial Intelligence, the Head of the UNICEF Office in Ukraine, Munir Mamedzade, noted that it is not only about resuming education or making up for educational losses, but also about the importance of communication between children and stabilizing their psycho-emotional health.

Summing up the event, Deputy Chairman of the Association of Innovative and Digital Education Dmytro Bondarenko said:

"The mission of education is to prepare a child for a successful life, to help, first of all, to form stable life principles, important human values ​​and national identity. That is why, in our centers, we provide training from making up for educational losses and psychosocial support, to lessons for life, school of bloggers and STEM. At the same time, we use our own educational platforms with the most modern educational technologies of virtual (VR) and augmented (AR) reality, artificial intelligence (AI), etc.».