Summer camp helps recently arrived Ukrainian children prepare for school, heal from trauma of war
CHICAGO -- The playground at St. Nicholas Cathedral School was a cacophony of voices speaking a mix of English and Ukrainian on a recent weekday, as kids swung from monkey bars and splashed in several little plastic swimming pools, a reprieve from the August heat.
One preschool student in a blue and pink swimsuit flitted from pool to pool, seamlessly switching from English to Ukrainian, depending on the native tongue of the child she was playing with in that moment.
“That’s a little translator,” said Principal Anna Cirilli, marveling at how kids seemed to find a way to play and communicate even when they don’t speak the same language. “In order for them to interact, they have to speak to each other. But you know, kids just talk to each other in their own language, it’s really weird how it happens.”
The prekindergarten through eighth grade parochial school in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village neighborhood typically enrolls a few children each year who immigrated from Ukraine. But since the Russian invasion in February, more than five dozen students fleeing the war have begun classes there, accounting for roughly one-third of the student population of about 200.
To help these new arrivals get acclimated to life in America and prepare for the
