Here we are, group of  Ukrainian kids in the middle of Slovakia. All of us are citizens of Ukraine. One of us is diagnosted autism, another communications disorder, and all of us  are helping each other to create a safe space.  One day we will return to Ukraine... we hope.  We hope that the day will come and the War which divided our lives into BEFO and AFTER will end. We hope for victory of peace, humanity and justice. Peace cannot be without humanity. Humanity cannot by without justice. We  are thinking about this and trying to understand the world around. And to understand us - who we are, where we are. Who were our ancestors and who will be our descendant. Thinking about the future we understand that we need to keep the roots. Living in between two cultures, so close and still different, we try to define ourselves through our history and traditions. We try to show to Slovak-Slovak counterparts, where we are alike and where we are different. And explain that diversity enriches and strengthen us. 

We had art classes with our lector, Ms Olena Turik. While creating art pieces, we often turn to traditional motives, and put them in current content - how we see it and understand. And discuss with our parent and other, what do we feel and think. 

In 2024, after the celebration of Ukrainian day in our city - our community planned it a day before the Independence Day of Ukraine - we decided to create our variation of traditional Ukrainian pattern for vyshyvanka. Elements of it is common to Slovakia, and it looks close to Slovak embroidery. But we created embroided tovel - which in our culture has very strong position. !Vysheyvyny rushnyk! - embroided tovel - differs us from neioghbour, but also connects  with them. For us it is a sacred peace of cloth we put on sacred for us things, we use it to symbolise happiness and sadness, life and death, memory and thoughts. 

From August to December we have been drawing , painting, cutting soft paper, then copying on cardboard, cutting cardboard, then putting pattern on cloth material - and created a rather big rushnyk. We can take it with us where we go to talk about us -  Ukrainians in Slovakia, leaving in between two countries and two cultures.

We are presenting the results of our story  - performance with our Rushnyk and a song about it. Also now we are studing to sing this song.