Solutions from Ukraine: Caritas creates six cartoons to help children combat stress

In Ukraine, six cartoons, "The Way of the Superhero," were created, which are aimed at helping children overcome stress.

Caritas Ukraine reported this on its official website.

What is the problem?

Ukraine has been under constant psychological stress for almost sixteen months due to the war with the Russian Federation. The horror of shelling, explosions, and losses is especially difficult for children. After all, children's psyche is still very sensitive to everything that happens around them.

What is the solution?

The cartoons were created by the creative team of the charity fund Caritas Ukraine as part of the project "Psychosocial support of participants in the educational process in wartime conditions in Ukraine" with the support of Caritas Korea.

Ukrainian-language cartoons, which will act on children's psyche as an anti-stress agent, are freely available on the YouTube channel.

How does it work?

In each video, there is a story about a child who went through difficult times but was able to cope with the challenge and become stronger.

"The "Way of the Superhero" cartoons are designed based on Professor Muli Laad's Multimodal Basic PH model, a multi-faceted approach to managing stress and achieving inner peace from the director of the Israel Stress Prevention Center.

It demonstrates different styles, ways of how a person can cope with stress and crisis," the project's creators emphasized.

The Basic PH model describes six elements that make up each person's unique style of coping with stress:

• philosophy of life, beliefs, and moral values;
• feelings, emotions;
• society and belonging to it, family and friends;
• imagination, intuition, and creativity;
• knowledge, logic, reality, and thoughts;
• physiology, sensory modality, and activity.

Each superhero cartoon series reveals one of these elements.

Five practical psychologists and teachers who have experience working with families in difficult life circumstances and migrant children from 2014 and 2022-2023 joined the development of cartoon scenarios.

As Rubryka wrote, thousands of Ukrainian families of immigrants are starting their lives from the beginning because of the war. Rediscovering yourself in a new place is not easy for adults and children – without familiar things, friends, or formed habits.

At home, children leave not only their past but also often their favorite activities because finding the right groups and sections to continue practicing in a new place is quite a challenge.

In order to fill the lives of the children of forced migrants with new meanings, the charity foundation "Dobre TUT" launched a children's "Media Academy" in Dnipro.

Read more about this in Rubryka's article: "What can be learned in a week? How the media academy for children of immigrants works in Dnipro."

In addition to what we informed, a video about children from Chornobayivka, Kherson region, was presented by the charity project Behind Blue Eyes. In the story, children voice their thoughts about nature and the state of the environment during the war.