A break from the war: Summer camps for children in Ukraine
At 12, Alina has the kind of daily routine many children would recognize: school, homework, gymnastics, friends, sleepovers and arguments over who gets to choose the next game. But there is something very different about Alina's childhood. She knows what it feels like to wake up because of explosions.
"When the war started, I was seven," she says. “I woke up because it started banging and exploding.” Her family left their home in the Kyiv region and travelled to relatives in Vinnytsia region, where they stayed together during the first months of the full-scale invasion. Years later, Alina remembers those days in fragments: the journey, the relatives, the house where they stayed, and eventually returning home. The war did not end when they returned.
Trying to be 12 in wartime Ukraine
Today, Alina lives in the Kyiv region and is starting seventh grade. But even the beginning of a new school year is shaped by the war. She did not attend the traditional first-day-of-school celebration this year. "We didn't even have it because there were air raid alerts," she says. “They are shelling very heavily now.” Her days are carefully structured around school and gymnastics. She wakes at around 7 a.m., gets ready, packs her school things and heads to class. After school, there is homework and then gymnastics.
For Alina, gymnastics is more than an after-school activity. It is one of the things that makes her life feel like the life of a 12-year-old. She has been training for almost two years. She has performances coming up and several routines to practise. She talks about her friends at gymnastics with the energy and detail of any teenager describing the people who matter most to her.There is Nastia, her friend since first grade. There is Sofiika, a younger friend whom Alina accompanies to gymnastics because the road isn't always safe and she feels responsible for her. And there are the friends she made this year at the summer camp organized by Malteser Ukraine with the support of Malteser International.
There is Nastia, her friend since first grade. There is Sofiika, a younger friend whom Alina accompanies to gymnastics because the road isn't always safe and she feels responsible for her. And there are the friends she made this year at the summer camp organized by the Maltese Relief Service in Ukraine with the support of Malteser International. In many ways, Alina has learned to be independent early. "I was taught this way from childhood," she says. “That I can be independent and not constantly depend on my parents.”
The war has also left its mark on Alina's own family. Her father became a soldier in autumn 2025. He was later seriously injured, suffering fractures to two bones in his leg, and now requires long-term rehabilitation. Alina knows that he may not be able to return to military service. She is glad that he is home with the family now.
Finding joy during summer
For Alina, the war is not something distant or abstract. It is part of her family's story and part of her everyday life. It is one of the reasons she had to grow up quickly and take on responsibility at an early age. That is why the days she spent at the summer camp felt so special. When she thinks of it, she talks about her friends. She talks about the games they played, the teams they formed, the extra points they earned by collecting rubbish around the camp, and the acrylic paints they won. She talks about a disco. She talks about the girls sleeping in the same room. In the evenings, the girls would stay together long after the day's activities had ended, talking, laughing and sharing stories before falling asleep side by side in their room.
Back to the new normal
As autumn begins and children across Ukraine return to school, the contrast between what childhood should look like and what it has become is once again impossible to ignore. For many children, going to school can mean not making it to class before an air raid alert forces everyone into a shelter, or spending part of a lesson underground instead of at a desk.
Across Ukraine, 4.6 million children face barriers to education, while many continue to study online or in mixed formats because of the war. Attacks, displacement and repeated interruptions continue to make it difficult for children to learn, socialize and experience the routines that school should provide. For children like Alina, the loss is not only measured in missed lessons. It is also the loss of ordinary school days, conversations during breaks, friendships made in classrooms and the sense that tomorrow will look much like today. Yet they continue to learn, train, make friends and plan what comes next. They are holding on to the parts of childhood that war has tried to take away. And they should not have to be so brave simply to be children.
This article was written by Halyna Bilak, Communications Manager for Malteser International in Ukraine, in September 2026.
