Ukraine in a collaborative effort with Lithuania is launching a project to build modern, inclusive, schools designed for sheltering-in-place 

Ukraine is delivering the Future School for Ukraine project, an initiative introduced by the Government of Lithuania in partnership with the Recovery Agency. It will develop a high-quality adaptive school design based on the results of an international architectural competition. The final version of the specially-designed school building planning guide will be provided without charge to Ukrainian communities and partners interested in further construction.

This, in particular, was discussed during a discussion of the initiative at the Media Center Ukraine – Ukrinform.

According to Arturas Žarnovskis, Co-create Future of Ukraine program manager, this project will be quite a support for communities, and a solution to boost donor acquisition, as well as save time and funds in the process of rebuilding schools.

“This Future School for Ukraine project will take a medium-term perspective. After all, our goal is to create tools and projects that can be used in different areas and possibly be scaled up for reconstruction to use adaptive technological design in different places. This will serve as real support for municipalities, for communities, to ensure that they provide high-quality projects to attract donors, save time and money, as we understand the scale of this mission,” he explained.

Andriy Stashkiv, Deputy Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine added that the Future School for Ukraine project is highly relevant now, as it will provide an opportunity to get “a standard construction project to be customizable for the erection of school building in any region of Ukraine.”

As Mustafa Nayem, head of the Recovery Agency, explained during the discussion, the design and publicly available contractor-generated estimate based on construction documentation following a tendering process for each community could easily adapt the project for their very region.

“Afterwards, each community or city will be able to use this design and construction cost estimates to customize the solution to fit their region’s needs, depending on its scale, the number of people, and terrain, tailor building plan accordingly and start construction. And we will understand for sure that this is a highly efficient, energy-efficient, inclusive project, and it is also very important that these will be schools according to the new standards,” Mustafa Nayem said.

Anna Novosad, co-founder of the SavED charitable foundation, added that this project is especially critical for small communities that often find themselves unable to cope with the restoration of educational institutions destroyed by the enemy.

“If you look at the requirements, it’s clear that this school will actually be a hub institution, which will serve as a hub for transporting children from the surrounding areas where there are a small number of children. Hence, this is exactly the project that will be needed as a priority when rebuilding the education infrastructure. In my opinion, it is necessary to prioritize those who are less capable of overcoming emerging issues, and these are mostly rural areas,” she added.

Read more: https://mediacenter.org.ua/news