Better Time Stories: a Project for Ukrainian Kids, Presented by Olena Zelenska

A new book project for Ukrainian children who were forced to leave for European countries because of the war.

The First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska presented the book project Better Time Stories. Ukrainian children are internally displaced persons in Europe. 1.8 million kids can get a set of five illustrated books with audio versions in the original language and in translation.

The project’s peculiarity is the possibility to record an individual audio version of the books. Each child can have it recorded by a relative who stayed in Ukraine. Thus, children can hear the book read in the voice of their relatives or parents.

“The value of the project is that families separated by war, who have not seen each other for a long time and miss each other, can become closer thanks to a book and a native voice. The value is in feeling a loved one close to you again, and in the fact that the project brings cultures together, because all the books are bilingual – in Ukrainian and German or Dutch,” First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska said.

The patronesses of the project are First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska, First Lady of Germany Elke Büdenbender, First Lady of Austria Doris Schmidauer and Princess Laurentine of the Netherlands.