Decorating the shelter in school No. 147 is completed!

Volunteers B50 have finished decorating the bomb shelter at school No. 147 in Kyiv! This is the first such project of our community in the new year, but not the last, because since January 2023 the transformation of children’s shelters is a new direction for B50!

Employees of school No. 147 did the rough work on their own (cleared the space, painted the walls, installed heat, installed dry closets) and turned to the B50 community with a request to decorate the premises.

Our volunteers responded to this request and made the safe space even brighter and more interesting. The task was not easy, because both first-graders and future graduates will be in the school shelter. So the creative concept of the new facility had to take into account their needs. Also, due to blackouts, volunteers had to work under the light of lanterns.

Yulia Horbasenko, B50 Shelters coordinator, describes the experience of painting in the dark as follows:

The main problem at this location was the lack of light. 3 days out of 4 we worked almost in the dark. This made it difficult to see the general view of the shelter, to mix paints, it was more difficult to make straight lines. But the B50 activists coped with this challenge too – the walls are decorated, the shelter is ready, the project is completed!

Polina Koruts, B50 volunteer artist, also shares her impressions of working in the bomb shelter of school No. 147:

This location is very different from the previous one. This is a large school in which full 11 classes are taught, from children to adults. I wanted to unite them somehow, find an idea that would be interesting for everyone. This is how the “With Ukraine in the Heart” map appeared.

We also decided to add brightness to the shelter, so that the atmosphere there would become a little more lively and distract from the circumstances that made the children spend their time there. We combined the symbolic colors into a kind of Ukrainian rainbow that runs through the entire room and looks nice. And to make it more interesting for children, various details related to school were added.

We show photos of the bomb shelter before and after the work of B50 volunteers. To see the transformation, drag the slider with arrows.