"Pink Panama" is a safe space for IDP children, large families, families in difficult circumstances, and families of supporting professions.

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"Pink Panama" has been implemented in Dnipro since 2022. Since June 2024, part of its activities have been implemented with the technical support of the "Pomagayem" Foundation and UN Women in Ukraine and the financial support of the UN Women's Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF).

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• Our task is to return childhood to children traumatized by war, - say the project team members. These are young people from 20 to 35 years old who work with children from 5 to 18 years old.

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The safe day space accepts children with IDP status, from large families, families in difficult life circumstances, and families of people in supporting professions (doctors, social workers, police officers, volunteers, rescuers, journalists, etc.). In particular, these are children who either lost their homes and familiar environment, destroyed by enemy shelling, or were forced to evacuate with their parents (guardians) back in 2014 or 2022. The geography is quite wide - Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, Zaporizhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

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“Pink Panama” is a space where children can stay for several hours while their parents are at work, looking for work or on business, get a hot meal, play, sing, draw, communicate with peers. Thus, the team of the space creates conditions for the socialization and integration of children who lost this in the conditions of evacuation. If necessary, a child can work with a speech therapist or correctional teacher, receive a consultation from a psychologist or a course of psychotherapy.

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The space has permanent staff and involved specialists: social educators, a speech therapist, a school preparation teacher, a psychologist and an art therapist. Master classes, board and mobile games, active discussion of interesting topics, social and emotional learning, 3D pen classes, art therapy, etc. - a day at “Pink Panama” is rich and interesting.

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The staff of the space assesses the needs of each child through a questionnaire of parents (guardians) or a personal conversation. We can already see that in addition to educational and cultural services, families also need humanitarian assistance - stationery, food, medicine, hygiene products. We are trying to gradually solve these issues by involving other services of the NGO “MARTIN-club”.

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The space accepts about 15-20 children five days a week (Monday-Friday). During the work, more than 140 electronic questionnaires have been filled out. 80% of children need a day stay at the center along with developmental classes. 55% of them are children from families of displaced people. The greatest demand is for children aged 5-7 who do not yet go to school. They are at risk because they have lost the opportunity to develop according to their age.

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Our achievements:

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• According to the observations of social educators, many children have improved communication skills, decreased anxiety levels (in parents as well), and improved behavior.

• According to parents, children are happy to be at the center, willingly share their impressions, and are eager to return to classes at “Pink Panama” and communicate with teachers.