The transformation of the Zavorychi Gymnasium bomb shelter is complete!

Volunteers of the B50 community have renovated another shelter! So now 185 students of Zavorychi Gymnasium (Brovary district, Kyiv region) have a safe and comfortable space where they can not only wait out air raids, but also study, play, and socialize.

We received funds for this facility from the “Build a World of Play” initiative launched by the Irish NGO ChangeX with the support of the LEGO Foundation. When creating this project, ChangeX included our case study on the transformation of the Kozachok kindergarten shelter in Bucha in its guidelines. Representatives of ChangeX offered to participate in their project, so the B50 team applied, fulfilled all the necessary conditions, and successfully received funds to renovate another bomb shelter. With the grant, we purchased building materials and paints to repair and decorate the shelter in Zavorychi.

Shelter before the start of works by B50

In December 2023, volunteers from the Reconstruction project started working in Zavorychi and gradually handed over the renovated rooms to their colleagues from Shelters. Thus, the work went on in parallel, and thus faster. You can read what exactly was done during this time in the updates for December, January, February, and March.

The shelter is clean, dry, and consists of many rooms and passageways. Here, B50 volunteers had a number of tasks: repairing the walls, ceiling and floor, waterproofing, repairing and equipping the floor, refining the ventilation system, painting the walls and ceiling, decorating the walls with drawings, and otherwise furnishing the shelter with games, toys, books, etc.

During the transformation, we paid special attention to two small rooms for preschoolers and two large rooms for primary school students. In these rooms, the volunteers of the Reconstruction prepared the walls and ceiling for decoration (primed, plastered, painted), and added a technical room to one of the small rooms, thus expanding the space for beds.

Then we made and installed new shields for the shooting range located in the shelter, sewed up the unnecessary doorway with plasterboard, leveled the door sills, and installed doors (+locks) to the technical rooms where children should not be.

After that, B50 volunteers installed ventilation and carried out electrical work.

Then they made a screed in the room with the pit, painted the vestibule, renovated the entrance corridors and bathroom, fixed exit signs, and made 2 boards for placing children’s drawings.

The reconstruction was completed with the arrangement of the entrance group and the technical rooms, laying a heat-insulating floor in the preschool room (so that they could play comfortably) and painting the furniture.

Volunteers from the Shelters project also worked effectively and enthusiastically in the shelter of the Zavorychi gymnasium. Their task was to decorate 4 rooms for children with drawings.

We engaged Uliana Slutska, a designer from the Ampli teen educational accelerator, a platform that provides professional training for 11-19-year-olds in IT, design, and entrepreneurship, to decorate the shelter in Zavorychi. For their part, the B50 team provided ideas and references, and Uliana created layouts for each room.

The theme of this shelter is nature. The rooms for preschoolers are decorated with drawings from the depths of the forest and jungle, and the rooms for junior high school students are decorated with large murals of desert and ocean landscapes. The premises are decorated in pastel colors, which are recommended for kids according to the guidelines of the Ministry of Community, Territorial and Infrastructure Restoration of Ukraine.

It was easier for our artists to draw sketches on the walls thanks to a New Year’s gift to the B50 community – a projector. This way, the team worked in several rooms at once, which meant that the work was done faster.

The B50 team also equipped the shelters with various children’s activities. Thus, as part of the grant, we purchased new blankets for beds, balls and jumps, baskets for books and toys, board games and high-quality Ukrainian-language books. Children’s books were also donated to the shelter by B50 volunteer Mariia Naumchyk and her friends.

The children were delighted with the transformed shelter, new games, books, and a festive opening, which we will tell you about later. And for our team, this is an indicator of success!

The transformation of the Zavorychi Gymnasium shelter looks like this in numbers:

  • 36 volunteers joined the project;
  • activists from Reconstruction made 37 trips to Zavorychi;
  • artists from Shelters completed 4 rooms in 10 trips;
  • about 1100 hours were spent on repair work;
  • murals and drawings took more than 200 hours.

Currently, the shelter at Zavorychi Gymnasium is the largest object for the Reconstruction and Shelters projects. And we are proud to say that the B50 volunteers have done an excellent job, we are developing and getting better!

We sincerely thank everyone who contributed to the transformation of the shelter in Zavorychi,

To be continued!

The final view of the Zavorychi Gymnasium bomb shelter is shown in the photo below (to view it, drag the slider with arrows).

Room for primary school children “Oсean”
Room for preschoolers “Jungle”
Room for primary school children “Desert”
Room for preschoolers “Forest”