Station of Hope shelter and learning centre

ISSA Member: Transcarpathian Regional Charitable Fund Blaho, Ukraine

What happened?

When the war in Ukraine erupted, the Transcarpathian Regional Charitable Fund Blaho, already serving Roma children in Transcarpathia, transformed its child education centre into a Station of Hope shelter. It went even further, renting a former restaurant to increase capacity to host internally displaced families. Those two spaces became safe havens where children and families could access both humanitarian aid and emotional support. Teachers continued their work with the support of psychologists, providing young Roma and internally displaced children and their families with learning opportunities, psycho-emotional care, thus sustaining continuity of support during a crisis.

 
What was needed? How did they respond?
Displacement threatened the well-being of Roma and marginalised families, especially children under six. Recognising this, Blaho repurposed its educational centre as a community sanctuary. Teachers adapted practices to meet trauma-affected children’s needs, offering psycho-emotional support to infants and preschoolers, while preserving educational continuity for ages two to five.

Key challenges:

• Roma children from low-income families faced heightened vulnerability, with destabilized routines due to war and displacement.
• Many internally displaced families needed a safe place where to stay for short- or long-term period.
• Providing emotional and early childhood services within a functioning shelter required rapid adaptation.

Solutions:

• Blaho leveraged local trust and infrastructure, together with international support, to create a shelter that doubled as a supportive learning and care environment.
• Dedicated educators continued engaging children in age-appropriate, emotionally sensitive ways, bridging disruption with continuity.

As the host of Ukraine’s Romani Early Years Network (REYN), Blaho’s efforts reflect robust community engagement. Their partnership with the ISSA Network Hub, War Child Holland and Minderoo Foundation amplified their capacity to reach marginalised families and provide both safe environments and essential care.

What's in place? What's missing?

Blaho’s swift conversion of their educational centre into a trauma-responsive shelter and its entrepreneurial efforts in renting (and later buying) another space to increase its hosting capacity demonstrate how flexible service delivery and inclusive access can protect young children in crisis. However, the absence of formal frameworks, like pre-arranged emergency ECD shelters, means that such responsiveness currently depends on local initiative, leaving gaps across other vulnerable communities.

Being part of a regional network: Advantages of ISSA membership

Blaho’s membership in ISSA and their leadership in the REYN initiative underscore how localised, culturally responsive institutions can rapidly adapt and deliver inclusive services during crises, leveraging shared learnings and networks to support vulnerable children.

Recommendations

National policymakers:

• Implement targeted inclusion policies that guarantee access to ECD services for marginalized groups—e.g. Roma, IDPs—by integrating inclusive outreach into national emergency and social protection frameworks.
• Support flexibility for community organizations to repurpose local facilities for blended shelter and child development services during crises.
• Establish data-driven monitoring of service access among marginalized groups and enforce accountability to eliminate disparities in ECD inclusion.

Local/national actors

• Maintain outreach and transitional education channels—such as home visits and shelter-based ECD support—to reach children unable to attend formal centers.
• Actively engage marginalized communities through trusted mediators, cultural liaisons, and parents’ group facilitators to build inclusion and trust.
• Capture and share evidence of increased attendance, engagement, and psychosocial stability among marginalized children to inform institutional best practice.

Private donors

• Provide flexible funding for trusted local organizations with community legitimacy to deliver inclusive ECD services—even under unpredictable emergency conditions.
• Fund the creation, adaptation, and dissemination of inclusion toolkits, training manuals like “Different Together,” and education approaches tailored to marginalized children and caregivers.
• Support participatory evaluation and feedback mechanisms—capturing how inclusion efforts reach marginalized groups and documenting community-led successes.

Professionals/practitioners

• Prioritize training in culturally responsive pedagogy and inclusive early childhood approaches tailored to marginalized and displaced families.
• Establish protocols for home- or shelter-based delivery when center-based access is disrupted, ensuring safe contact and continuity of service.
• Partner with networks like REYN‑Ukraine and utilize methodological guides such as “Different Together” to inform inclusive curriculum, speech therapy, and parental outreach strategies.

 
Main Takeaways:
Blaho’s example demonstrates that inclusive access is achieved not merely by opening doors, but by proactively redesigning service delivery, building trust in marginalized communities, and sustaining flexible outreach even in crisis. Supporting Roma and displaced children demands culturally responsive practice, adaptive service models, and inclusive policy commitments before and during emergencies.

Explore further:
Meet new ISSA Member: Transcarpathian Regional Charitable Fund "Blaho" | ISSA
Hear me – See me – Stand with me! - REYN Ukraine