When students from James A. Foshay Learning Center saw the news earlier this year about Russia invading Ukraine, they had several questions including, “Why was Russia doing this?” and “When is the war going to stop?”.
“I was aware [of the invasion] because of the news but I didn’t really know much details about it,” recalls ninth-grader Stephanie Baltierra.
Their questions were answered by history and English teacher Robert Nelli, who spearheaded a letter-writing project this summer in which seventh to 11th-grade students wrote 375 letters of encouragement to Ukrainian orphans in Antalya, Turkey and Kharkiv, Ukraine.
“I was nervous because I didn’t know what to write at first,” Baltierra said. “But my friends were helping me [with sounding] more formal and everything in the letter, so I thought it was a really nice experience.”
The students tucked their letters into decorated envelopes and included a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1963 “Letter from Birmingham Jail” that says, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
The letters were delivered to children in Turkey and Ukraine thanks to help from the Ukrainian National Women’s League of America (UNWLA), an organization that promotes cultural efforts and provides humanitarian assistance to Ukrainians worldwide.
The project got started when Nelli won a grant from the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine to provide online “social-emotional learning” courses in 2021 to Ukrainian educators and university students to help them integrate real life with classroom lessons.
Nelli then pitched to an assistant cultural affairs officer at the embassy his idea to apply the course “on a person-to-person diplomacy basis whereby students … [provide] social-emotional learning strategies and support to children in Ukraine, specifically the most marginalized children.”
Social-emotional learning is a method of making sure a learner acquires skills and knowledge while developing emotional skills such as expressing empathy for others, according to the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning.
The letter-writing program at Foshay was built into the curriculum school-wide. Foshay’s administrators and teachers backed the project, according to Nelli, and student participation was voluntary and approved by their parents.
Because war can be a heavy topic for students, Foshay’s teachers made sure the students weren’t overwhelmed. For example, Nelli surveyed his students, asking them to indicate with their fingers — on a scale of one to four — how they were feeling.
The program culminated with writing the letters. Students decorated them and wrote words of encouragement, applying their skills gained from English class and elective classes like art.
Shipping the letters to orphans thousands of miles away was no easy feat amidst changing circumstances and tragedies in war-torn Ukraine. According to UNWLA vice-president Olenka Krupa, about 100 letters were sent to an orphanage in Kharkiv, but Krupa’s contact informed her that the orphanage had been bombed and two boys were killed.
“[The contact] said, ‘Look, we’re just in survival mode,’” Krupa said. Despite multiple attempts to keep in touch, Krupa did not hear back from her contact.
Only freight vehicles are allowed into Ukraine, according to Krupa, reducing the amount of humanitarian aid and cargo that can get into the area. At the same time, orphanages move for security reasons, and that makes it hard to contact them.
UNWLA is now fundraising to buy winter-relief items for families in Ukraine, Krupa said, and it’s reaching out to its contacts to get more locations where students can send letters.
Related Articles
Judge who struck down LAUSD COVID vaccine mandate says no need to do it twice
Dips in state and national school test scores in ‘The Nation’s Report Card’ show impact of pandemic
LAUSD holds Young Women’s Leadership Conference online on Nov. 5
Teachers union claims LAUSD is lagging in addressing the union’s contract demands
On Nov. 8 voters have compelling choices for LAUSD board members in districts 2 and 6
Students who participated in the letter-writing program said it helped them understand what children in Ukraine are facing.
“It was helpful to us in regards to us learning about what’s happening in Ukraine and what the children or people are going through in Ukraine at this time,” said Edgar Sanchez, an eighth grader.
Jade Sims, a ninth grader, agreed, saying that writing the letters “was really helpful and positive in regards to trying to bring up the spirits of the children in Ukraine.”
Recently, Nelli got word recently that a shipment of letters from the orphanage in Antalya, Turkey will be arriving soon at Foshay. And although the letter-writing program is over for now at Foshay, the program will return after winter break.
“This isn’t just a feel-good story of saying ‘Let’s write a letter to these kids and Ukraine,’ ” Nelli said, describing Foshay’s students’ own experiences as immigrants or children of immigrants.
“Some of these [students at Foshay] bring elements of their own learning … information from their own stories coming from Central and South America,” Nelli said. “ There’s a lot of stuff that goes into these letters.”
Related links
Russia unleashes heavy bombardment of Ukraine cities
Following Russian invasion of Ukraine, many Russians take deeper look at history and identity
Nurses and doctors of Children of War Foundation head to Amman to help kids needing surgery
West Hollywood woman’s foundation delivers urgent healthcare to war-ravaged Ukrainians