The war in Ukraine has abruptly interrupted the life of this mathematics teacher, who is now forced to live far away from her town and her pupils. But even an eye test can provide a moment of hope to look to the future.
The Caritas-Spes medical centre is a crossroads of stories. Of lives interrupted by war with people seeking here a new beginning to pick up again what was abruptly cut short by the outbreak of conflict. Svitlana’s story is one of these.
She is 58 years old and comes from the Ukrainian town of Enerhodar, in the south-eastern part of the country, near the Zaporižžja nuclear power plant. This is where she has lived all her previous life. She worked as a maths teacher in a school: “I tried to teach the children to think,’ she says with tears in her eyes, ‘my whole life, friends, relatives, my elderly mother, was left there. And there is no way I can go to my mother’s because the Russians won’t let anyone in”.
Svitlana is one of the patients at the Caritas-Spes Ukraine medical centre in Chernihiv, which she has visited a number of times and where she has found psychological support to cope with these months of extreme vulnerability. It is not easy. The bond with her city and the pupils she left behind is strong. Whenever she can, she turns on the computer and still teaches maths to her students with remote lessons: “We will rebuild everything, I am sure. And I can’t wait to go back to my school, I dream of a real, live lesson, I dream of looking my kids in the eye not online!”
Hope, in Svitlana’s heart, has not been extinguished.
At the Caritas-Spes outpatient clinic, Svetlana also had an eye test. She was given a new pair of glasses free of charge, the old ones were no longer suitable. And she was happy, because the war had also taken from her the opportunity to see a specialist. Now she can prepare her maths lessons better.
The medical support provided by Caritas-Spes to the Ukrainian people has been made possible thanks to the funds raised by the Emergency Coordination Team of the Focolare Movement, through AMU and AFN.