At the Eurovision Song Contest 2024 in Malmö, Ukraine will be represented by two popular artists — alyona alyona and Jerry Heil. Their song, Teresa & Maria, has made a lot of noise, and is currently among the top five contenders, according to bookmaker forecasts.
Audiences have many assumptions about what this song is about. Here’s how the performers explain it: “Teresa & Maria is about the strength, courage and resilience of Ukrainian women. The song is dedicated to them. It is about them, their pains and hopes, their dreams and big hearts that we will be talking about during the Eurovision promotional tour.”
LIUDMYLA TARANOVYCH HISTORY TEACHER
At the beginning of the full-scale war, the village of Velyka Kostromka suffered from artillery shelling almost every day. On October 11, 2022, a missile destroyed the school where Liudmyla had worked for 40 years.
“It was the school of my children and grandchildren. It was very painful to look at the wreckage. When my grandchildren came home and saw the destruction, they cried and asked: “Grandma, will our school be rebuilt?”
Despite persuasion from her family, Liudmyla did not leave her village and continued to work. During the shelling, which took place almost every day in the village, she taught history to children online from the bathroom or basement.
“The shelling was constant, especially at night. But in the morning, I still taught classes because I had to support the children and give them hope that everything would be okay.”
TETYANA MAHDA TEACHING ASSISTANT
At the Velykokostromska School, Tetyana works with children with special educational needs. After the missile hit the school, she and other teachers and villagers were clearing the rubble.
“The explosion was enormous! The gym was just a pile of bricks, iron, and frames. The wall was completely destroyed, as if it had been cut off. The entire ceiling from the third floor fell to the second floor. We took out the glass and debris in buckets, depositing them into the truck. We saved work machines, tools, the school library, and moved books to the small technical rooms that survived.”
Currently, Tetyana remains in her home village. She continues to work online every day with those who need her help and believes that her school will soon be rebuilt.
FUNDRAISER DETAILS
On October 11, 2022, a russian missile hit the Velykokostromska School in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. The strike destroyed the left wing of the building to the ground.
The Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, alyona alyona and Jerry Heil, together with UNITED24, Visa and Oschadbank, start raising 10,000,000 UAH to help 250 children return to school.
