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On January 22, the first underground educational space in the Pechenihy settlement, Kharkiv region, was inaugurated to serve as a community hub.
This shelter-based learning center can accommodate 150 children simultaneously, who had been studying online for the past four years. The charitable foundation savED, with support from EPAM Ukraine, equipped five underground classrooms, one of which is dedicated to art therapy for children.
The community has a total of 750 students, over 400 of whom attend Pechenihy Lyceum. During the full-scale war in 2022, the settlement of Pechenihy was on the front line and suffered from the effects of hostilities. The main lyceum was damaged by shelling, and several nearby villages were under occupation until September 2022. Consequently, most local schools in the community were either heavily or partially damaged, making it impossible to conduct in-person classes in above-ground facilities due to ongoing security risks.
In autumn 2023, the savED foundation created an educational center called “Hive” in the shelter of the Pechenihy Lyceum, marking the first safe place for extracurricular activities for children in the community. By December 2024, the underground space was further expanded to include five fully equipped classrooms featuring furniture, technology, teaching aids and a mini-library.
We managed to transform an old, neglected shelter into real underground classrooms that are cozy and vibrant — resembling a proper learning environment rather than just a shelter for air raid alerts. This is the essence of educational solutions during wartime: creating conditions for safe and uninterrupted in-person learning. In this regard, we already see the effectiveness of underground schools and educational centers we’ve implemented in other frontline communities,
— said Anna Putsova, co-founder of the savED foundation.
The renovation of the underground space in Pechenihy, including the installation of a new electrical network, ventilation system, water supply, sewage and heating, was funded by EPAM with over UAH 3.4 million.
For us, it’s essential to equip learning spaces not only with safe conditions but also with high-quality internet and technical infrastructure. Access to the global network and modern technology significantly enhances the quality of STEM education, which is a vital factor in developing the modern generation and boosting digitalization in the community,
— explained Yevhen Hrytskov, head of EPAM’s offices in eastern Ukraine.
An additional UAH 300,000 was allocated from the local budget, with further support for furniture provided by partners from the nonprofit international organization GlobalGiving. Altogether, the creation of the space cost over UAH 4 million.
The underground educational space in Pechenihy will be accessible to students from across the community. Oksana Pomyliaiko, the principal of Pechenihy Lyceum, stated that classes would be conducted in several shifts in a mixed format. For students in grades 1–4, who had only studied remotely until now, the underground activities in the shelter mark their first systematic experience of in-person learning.
We returned to Pechenihy from Germany, where we had fled due to the war, specifically so our son could attend a Ukrainian school. Finally, he has in-person classes, but it’s very unusual for young children—they’re still struggling to concentrate,
— shared Oksana Drozdova, the mother of a second-grader and a teacher at Pechenihy Lyceum.
Creating underground learning spaces is a priority for the savED foundation in bringing students from frontline communities back to in-person education.
We are currently working in five frontline regions where access to education is most restricted. These are communities that have experienced significant destruction and occupation. In 2025, we plan to establish new educational centers and underground classrooms. Specifically, in the Kharkiv region, we aim to expand opportunities in Izium and Balakliia, where a large number of children live and study,
— said Hanna Novosad, co-founder of the savED foundation and former Minister of Education and Science.
