Press conference with Future School for Ukraine competition jury in Kyiv

Reducing educational losses and returning children to offline school is one of the main tasks of the education sector of Ukraine today. “Future School Ukraine” purpose is to save time and money for the design of new educational institutions. In the course of the initiative, a high-quality adaptive school project will be developed, obtained through an international architectural competition. The ready-to-implement technical project of the school will be provided free of charge to Ukrainian communities and partners interested in construction. Project leaders from Lithuania and competition jury members talked about the project’s perspectives during a press conference in Kyiv.

The Central Project Management Agency CPVA, Lithuania, which has significant experience in Ukraine since 2014, is responsible for project implementation. Arturas Zharnovskis, head of the “Co-create Future of Ukraine” (CPVA) programs and part of the competition jury, is confident that the new project will help eliminate delays in the processes of planning and building schools:

“From the agency’s experience, we know that the first thing that a donor needs to decide on the reconstruction of an object is a technical project. With Ukrainian and worldwide architects we are committed to creating high-quality, innovative, and rooted-in Ukrainian needs school project.”

Mustafa Nayem, head of the Restoration Agency and one of the jury members, says that the initiative meets the actual needs of rebuilding the educational sector:

“If communities are asked to develop a school project now, it will be the same type of school that has been built over the last half-century. We need to start building now, and we need to build anew, better than before.”.

An international architectural competition with an open procedure will ensure the selection of a school project of the highest quality. Among the members of the jury are the world names of architecture Helen Sandman (Finland) and Carl Beckstrand (Sweden), together with Mustafa Nayem, Anna Novosad, Ukrainian and Lithuanian architects. The tasks for the competition were developed by Ukrainian and Lithuanian specialists in education and architecture, including SavED co-founder Anna Novosad.

“Russia continues to very deliberately and cynically destroy Ukrainian education. In conditions of colossal destruction in various regions of the country, communities are very often left alone with their problems with access to education. After all, it is very difficult to help everyone on time and to the fullest extent. The “Future School Ukraine” is valuable because it will be a ready-made project that communities can adapt to their conditions and needs and use for a faster independent search for resources to restore school education.” – said Anna Novosad.

Lithuania ranks second in the world in terms of aid to Ukraine as a share of the country’s GDP. Lithuania’s total aid to Ukraine in the military, financial, humanitarian and reconstruction spheres is more than 1 billion euros. Fund for the Development of Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid allocated EUR 500,000 for the project.