Ternopil City Council was the presentation place for an album of children’s drawings Daddy, Come Back Alive! The album includes more than twenty artistic works, though Ternopil children originally drew a lot more pictures, which had been sent to the ATO zone earlier. There are also children’s letters and poetry. The cover features a drawing of a smiling sun, four colored imprints of children’s palms and the inscription “Come back alive! We love you!” The album was published thanks to the volunteers of NGO “Perspektyvna Hromada” as a part of “Little Heroes to Big Heroes” project. On the presentation, which was attended by the young authors and their parents, Oleksandr Smyk, head of Culture and Arts department of Ternopil City Council said: “I often have the occasion to speak with the ATO warriors, and they say that children’s drawings and letters are the things they cherish the most and take with themselves from trench to trench.”
Mishel Liubotenko came from Luhansk and now she is studying in the 2nd grade of the 25th Ternopil Middle School. She painted her house with the blue-and-yellow flag proudly flutter above, the tree and green grass nearby. Her dog and the bright sun are also on the picture. “I wanted to send some love with the drawing; for myself I wish to be able to come back to my house, and for the soldiers – to come back home alive,” says the girl. Seven-year-old Ostap Mytsyshyn from the 11th Middle School created the picture of doves, symbolizing the victory of Ukrainian soldiers and the eventual peace. First-grader Ivanka Romaniuk drew a swing, flowers, trees, her mother, herself, her sister, the sun, clouds, and soldiers. “I wanted to show how much I love Ukraine and our soldiers,” Ivanka explains. Tetiana Khorkava, inspector for extracurricular and educational activities of the City Council Education Department, comments: “With their own vision the children are expressing their support to the soldiers.”
Serhii Nadal, Ternopil mayor, told The Day that the album came out in three thousand copies. Part of the circulation will be distributed to libraries and schools, the rest will be sent to the soldiers of ATO. There are also prospects for future re-issues of the album. The mayor considers the project to be the first of its kind in Ukraine. “I am sure such things can be very stirring. Several years ago I had been in Georgia and was heartbroken seeing the pictures Georgian children drew. They painted, for example, mother, father, drops of blood, and a crying child standing to the side; or Russian airplanes, bombarding the houses. It was very confounding to me. And I never thought that something like this might happen to us.”
