“Our first victory is that we have survived and are organising the educational process under the current conditions. Projects such as EdUP, help us to keep hope alive, support us and show us that we have room to grow.”
In the first days of the full-scale invasion, the lyceum’s staff and students began to evacuate the town, which came under Russian shelling. Now some students are in the government-controlled area, some have gone abroad, and some have remained in the occupied territory. However, all of them keep in touch and study.
“To say that the war has changed our lives is an understatement. Many familiar things are simply not available anymore. We don't have a place that would unite us all under one roof every day. We live in different cities in rented apartments or dormitories,” says the deputy director.
Immediately after the evacuation, teachers got in touch with students, organised and adapted the learning process to a remote format. In addition, the institution continued to participate in all EdUP activities.
“EdUP's training in business planning and grant writing looked like a straw that we grasped. There were and still are many problems around us, but we were shown the way to positive development, helped to define the strategic goals of our educational institution. When the training started, we did not invent stories that were detached from reality. The title of our business plan was “Rebuilding the school and restoring the educational process”. First, we were explained how to do business planning, and then we started working. We imagined that tomorrow the war would end and we would return without understanding the condition of the lyceum, but we would have to restore it completely,” says Olena Shevchenko.
It is currently known that the lyceum’s buildings have been partially damaged due to active hostilities.
“Of course, a big part of our business plan is to renovate our offices and workshops to meet modern requirements. But we also see another task. In Lysychansk, where one of the buildings of the Pryvilsky Lyceum is located, few institutions offered students accommodation in dormitories. This affected the attractiveness of vocational education. So when we talk about restoring the lyceum, we must include the construction of a dormitory. It should not be a concrete box for sleeping, but a convenient, comfortable space for a young person to live and have fun. Only through the creation of attractive infrastructure and opportunities for development can we talk about the return of young people to peaceful Lysychansk,” says Olena.
As a result, the business plan of the Pryvilsky Vocational Lyceum was ranked second among the 25 institutions participating in the EdUP project.
The next step after the business plan competition was the training on grantwriting. Schools were explained how to attract investors or partners for joint projects, and provided with websites where they could find announcements with grant proposals.
“For me personally, it was interesting to hear that a grant application should be written in simple language. When we, educators, communicate with each other, we use terms and concepts that we understand. While a person outside the ‘educational community’ may not understand the context at all. It seems like a simple point, but we often forget about it. So the first requirement for ourselves is to learn to be understood. It is not as easy as it may seem at first glance, but it is very important,” Olena explained.
Only teachers who teach students remotely remained among the school’s staff. So working on a grant application is difficult. It is necessary to describe the concept, budget, and stages of project implementation in a high-quality manner. All of this often needs to be written in English.
“For me personally, it was interesting to hear that the grant application should be written in simple language. When we, educators, communicate with each other, we use terms and concepts that we understand. While a person outside the ‘educational community’ may not understand the context at all. It seems like a simple point, but we often forget about it. So the first requirement for ourselves is to learn to be simple and clear. It is not as easy as it may seem at first glance, but it is very important,” Olena explained.
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The Public-Private Partnership to Improved Plumbing Education (EdUP) is a project of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, in partnership with Geberit Trading LLC, implemented by Swisscontact Foundation for Technical Cooperation and supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.