Feedback Three years have passed since the beginning of full-scale Russian aggression, when millions of Ukrainians were forced to leave their homes under shelling and take their children to safe places. Many of the children who left Ukraine at that time have been living in EU countries ever since. We spoke with them, their parents, and their teachers about how young people are adapting in Europe, how they perceive their present, and what they think about the future.
In 2022, their families did not expect the war to last so long—that their children would grow up in other countries, studying in foreign languages. The EU granted temporary asylum to Ukrainians—many then perceived the situation as a short-term disaster, planning to return home soon and finish their education in Ukrainian schools. Some of the families returned, but many could not; their homes were occupied, or were destroyed by the war, and Ukraine remained unsafe for all these years.
Gradually, almost all children switched to local schools in local languages, joining the educational process of the host countries. The children developed social connections, and older teenagers sometimes sought and found jobs (part-time jobs), graduated from school, entered secondary vocational or higher educational institutions, and acquired a profession. Many teenagers have realized that they want to get an education in the EU, and they do not plan to return to finish their studies in their native places. At the same time, they think that after getting an education, they may go to work in Ukraine
Some teenagers take on a double burden: they study in European schools, but they do not give up online education in Ukraine in order to get Ukrainian certificates. Their parents increasingly believe that their children should choose their own paths, but they themselves struggle to give advice, as life in the EU is so different from what they were accustomed to back home.
A mother of three sons shared that their family’s main goal in relocating was to stay together: her eldest son was already a student in the EU, so she and her two younger sons moved to join him. Now, each of her grown children has their own plans. One of them, at 17, quickly adapted—not only finding a part-time job while still in school but also renting an apartment with his girlfriend, another Ukrainian student who came to Europe without her parents and is under the guardianship of a local family. Meanwhile, her youngest son sees no point in staying abroad if his brothers are leading their own lives. He wants to return to Ukraine, deliberately distancing himself from new opportunities and refusing to make friends in his new environment.
At the same time, the representatives of the Ukrainian youth themselves, who find themselves in the EU, feel painful uncertainty, not knowing what awaits them in the future. According to a student who was forced to leave Donbas (the place where her parents’ family lives were occupied in February 2022), she still cannot determine her life plan, even for the near future.
This girl notes that, despite the complexity of the life choice facing her, it is still easier for her than for those who came from Ukraine as a schoolchildren, like her younger brother. She was a student in Kharkiv from the age of 17. When she got to Belgium, she knew that she would continue her art education, and she immediately enrolled in the university’s design department. Her younger brother did not have time to make a professional choice before leaving, and once in a foreign country, he was confused, unable to find his way – despite the support of his host family and sister.
There are also successful examples of the integration of teenagers who find themselves in Belgium without parents. On the Radio Liberty video, Maxim, a 16-year-old boy from Ugledar, whose house was destroyed by a Russian missile, tells his story. His parents were unable to leave Ukraine; he came to Brussels with his grandparents, and was accepted by a local family that later took a fostering status. The boy appreciated the opportunity not only to learn French better while living in the family in Brussels, but also to learn new rules of life.
All the girls and boys surveyed noted the difficulty of linguistic and cultural adaptation in the new reality. Here’s how an art student in Belgium talks about it:
“I’ve been learning Dutch for the third year now, and now I’m on vacation, but I’m enrolling in a Dutch course again, and I’m going to continue, because, as I said, language is the most important thing at all. It doesn’t matter how smart you are, how cool you are, or how funny you are. If you can’t say this or that, well, you’re nobody. For me, it’s more about some kind of social understanding of each other, that’s how people are, because I don’t have such close relationships with any of the Belgians here, like I had in Ukraine.”
Some people painfully perceive themselves as strangers, both from peers and from adults, sometimes even schoolteachers. A student at a German school in a Bavarian village notes that among German students there are those who divide everyone into Germans and non-Germans, and there are others who treat children from other countries well.
A girl, who also studies in Bavaria, but at a different school, notes that even teachers at the school allow themselves to say in front of the students: “we have only 3 Germans in our class,” although there are German-born children in the class. But since they come from families of Turkish origin, the teacher does not consider them equal to Germans, which offends children from migrant families, including her Ukrainian students.
Conflicts also arise with children from other migrant communities in Germany, especially those who support Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. There are also cases of conflicts between Ukrainian children and children from families who moved to the EU from Russia.
Many Ukrainian students have difficulty finding mutual understanding with other refugee children from countries where people also suffer from violence and wars: Afghanistan, Syria, and African countries. When students from Ukraine find themselves in classes for non-native speakers, they are sometimes not immediately ready to accept themselves as part of the general group of migrant children. But the new life also provides an opportunity to become more open and tolerant, especially for those who come from small towns and villages.
Among the teachers who deal with Ukrainian children in European schools, there are many teachers motivated to help migrants who are willing to devote time and attention to children of poor competence in local language. These teachers believe that Ukrainian children can overcome all barriers, become excellent specialists, and find a good job in the EU. A teacher of a maritime college told about his Ukrainian students – some of them had previously studied seamanship in Odesa and Mariupol, others had already chosen this specialty in emigration. The main problem for everyone was the new language of instruction, and the school needed to take support measures to solve this problem.
It is still too early to draw conclusions about how young Ukrainians are transitioning into adulthood in the EU. The uncertainty of the moment, the complexity of their circumstances, and their resilience are reflected in the words of a young student:
“Right now, I feel like I’m just keeping myself busy, learning things—but I’ll only be able to build something real when the war ends, when I see my parents and sisters again, when I visit home. Then I’ll be able to decide where I truly belong—here or there. But for now, I’m doing as much as I can, as well as I can. For now, no one is forcing me to leave Belgium—thank God. But even if they did, it wouldn’t be a disaster. I love Kharkiv, I’ve always loved it. If they tell me, ‘You have to leave Belgium, the doors are closed,’ I’ll go back to Kharkiv and build my life there. And I’ll be happy.”
Vira GRUZOVA,
first published on the Radio Liberty blog