After a successful pilot phase of the back-to-school packages in North Rhine-Westphalia and Berlin, the aid organisation CARE International is now expanding its assistance to Ukrainian refugees thanks to funding from the Deutsche Bank Foundation, Aktion Deutschland Hilft and support from the school backpack manufacturer Satch inside Germany.
"The back-to-school packages are a great initiative, they help the children settle in better and use their free time creatively," explains Sabine Kreutzer, headmistress of the Marie-Kahle-School in Bonn. "The packages contain things that often cannot be packed when fleeing quickly, but are essential to students."
With the back-to-school packages, CARE, together with its partners, supports children and young people in high school and primary school. The packages consist, among other things, of a backpack, exercise books and, depending on the age group, a pocket calculator and compass or a coloring book and brushes.
The need for support remains immense: since the conflict intensified in Ukraine, Germany has taken in around 780,000 Ukrainian refugees, around 40 percent of whom are of school age. In the first few weeks of the back-to-school package campaign, almost 2,000 packages were ordered, most of which were ordered by institutions in cities such as Bonn and Berlin.
“Our children were very happy when they received the wonderful gifts. I would like to thank everyone who helps Ukrainian families,” says Oksana K., mother of a Ukrainian student who received one of the back-to-school packages at the Marie-Kahle-School in Bonn.
Photos of a distribution of the back-to-school packages for media use can be found here.
For all media enquiries, please contact David Moore at moore@careinternational.org