Help us build a library for Svitlo School students by donating or buying books in English
How to Donate#GiftABookForSvitlo
#SvitloReads
At Svitlo School, Ukrainian children are passionate about learning English and want to read English books. Unfortunately, English books are difficult for them to obtain. There are limited English books in the standard Ukrainian curriculum, and buying English books in Ukraine can be very expensive.
We want to create a Svitlo School Library, so that all our students from across Ukraine can access English books. Svitlo means ‘light’ and you can help bring this to Ukrainian children by donating a new or pre-loved book to our online library and help us supply school bomb shelters at Ukrainian schools with English books. You can send us pre-loved books from your own collection, purchase a book from our wish list or contribute to our postage fund to send books to Ukraine.
We know that childhood reading brings profound and varied benefits in cognitive development, language, educational attainment and wellbeing. But for Ukrainian children, the benefits are even greater:
Help us create a library and fuel our students’ imagination, curiosity, knowledge and future success.
DONATE TO HELP WITH RUNNING COSTS
You can also make a donation on our Just Giving page, which will help us cover the cost of deliveries and the running of the project
CHOOSE A BOOK FROM OUR WISH LIST
If you don’t have books but would like to help, you can purchase a new or used book from one of our wish lists
For SCHOOLS and PUBLISHING HOUSES
Contribute to our Svitlo Library collection or help us supply a bomb shelter in a Ukrainian school with your new or pre-loved books.
We have 2 cohorts of students - our Juniors are 10-13 years old and our Seniors are 14-18 years old.
Across each cohort, students have varying degrees of English language proficiency. Some students will enjoy simpler books and others can take on more complex reads.
We hope to collect enough books and fundraise enough money to supply Ukrainian schools with bookboxes full of books in English like on the photo. Children often spent up to 5 hours a day in school bomb shelter in some part of Ukraine.
The initiative to create the Svitlo School Library was inspired by our students. In spring 2024, through our partnership with Global Social Leaders (GSL), a group of Svitlo students participated in a global competition focused on developing projects that could positively impact their community. While enhancing their teamwork, problem-solving, and creative skills, they came up with an exciting idea for an online library.
Although they did not win the competition, you can see their entry here, their inspiring idea highlighted a gap in our resources. While we strive to provide a well-rounded education in English for our students, their access to English literature in Ukraine is limited, since books in English are relatively rare and expensive. Therefore, we decided to address this issue by creating our own Svitlo School Library.
In addition to the new idea of providing access to physical books in English, we have also partnered with Giglets, an online literacy resource. We are training our older students to facilitate guided reading sessions and reading clubs using Giglets' online resources for the younger students. This initiative not only improves the English literacy of our younger students but also provides our older students with teaching skills while enhancing their own English proficiency.
Our further literacy-focused activities include:
Svitlo School is a registered charity in England and Wales with a very important mission - to empower the future political, social and business leaders of Ukraine to become global citizens. We provide a unique online educational sanctuary for Ukrainian children affected by war.
In 2022-2024 we have supported over 500 students by offering:
9,474
hours taught
540
students supported
63
classes per week
data Sep 2023 to Jul 2024
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