Three Ukrainian teenagers who developed apps for children who have fled war have been awarded this year’s International Children’s Peace prize at a ceremony in London.
Sofia Tereshchenko, 18, Anastasiia Feskova, 17, and Anastasiia Demchenko, 17, were awarded the prize for developing a pair of apps for refugee children.
Inspired by a news report of a lone child crying while crossing the Ukraine-Poland border, the trio met online and developed one app for young children who have fled their country, to help them understand where they are and how to seek help, and another for older children on how to integrate into the countries they successfully sought refuge in.
The awards were held in the UK for the first time on Friday. Speaking at a ceremony held in the Palace of Whitehall, Mpho Tutu, the daughter of Desmond Tutu, said: “The children are speaking. No, they are screaming.”
Tereshchenko fled Ukraine with her mother and relocated to Ely, Cambridgeshire, UK. Her father and brother still remain in Ukraine. She said the family were always tight-knit and that being separated was “heartbreaking”.
Aaron Scarth, 16, from Liverpool, UK, was nominated for his work advocating on behalf of the children of imprisoned parents. In 2018, he helped rewrite the Council of Europe recommendations about the children of imprisoned parents, ensuring it was available in child-friendly language and was the lead consultant for the development of a child impact toolkit for the children of prisoners.
Speaking at the ceremony, he said: “Whatever our parents did and didn’t do, this does not define us.”
Scarth’s father was jailed when he was nine, an experience he described as akin to “grieving someone”. “My dad wasn’t around when I was younger so I had to learn things that other males may have been taught by myself or [from] my mother,” he said.
Sri Nihal Tammana, 14 from New Jersey, US, was nominated for his environmental campaigning. He founded the charity Recycle My Battery, which facilitates the proper recycling of batteries. Since 2019, his efforts have already led to the collection and recycling of over 250,000 batteries.
The International Children’s Peace prize was first awarded in 2005. In 2013, Malala Yousafzai was awarded the prize, having been nominated the year prior. She went on to win the Nobel prize in 2014. In 2019, Greta Thunburg was awarded the prize for her climate activism.
Accepting the prize in person, Feskova said: “It’s time for the adults to take responsibility for their actions that affect children.”
“As much as we want all children to have a safe and peaceful childhood. We understand that reality is different.”
“We hope to create a better future for children, no matter who they are and where they are from. We need your support to turn this into reality. We need all of you to be open to interact[ing] with children from different backgrounds, children who are living in an entirely alien environment through no fault of theirs,” she added.
