Animation activities in the Ukrainian Brothers’ Fun Club

Today we celebrate Children’s Day. When I think about children and childhood, I can’t help but think of all those children, whose childhood has been brutally turned upside down at the beginning of this year. Children who were forced to leave their homes and seek asylum for an indefinite period of time. 

Contributing to activities with social impact has always been important for us. So I decided to write today about the voluntary program I have been involved in for about three months. The project is a community-building activity for Ukrainian families. Including childcare, functioning basically like an after school.

Our activity is a weekly visual workshop, initiated by a great enthusiastic civil organization, Social Fiber (Panek Zsuzsi, Madaras Dávid and Bedő Hanna). A team established to organize cool, long-term activities for children coming from vulnerable groups. 

During their activities in this project, children try different forms of visual arts. This is where I joined in with a regular projection of animated films, without any language, selected for children of different ages. We have also started to create stop motion animations, which are always a great discovery and fun for children.

<< See how can you make stop motion videos at home>>

Once, because children can address their own themes and they can create the illusion of motion by moving objects and taking photos. Secondly, because this teaches them patience, perseverance, and teamwork. At the end of the process the reward is always the miracle of the static elements coming to life. 

The characters and the settings of the animations are being prepared. The photos are made by Olga Tolstaya, who has quickly become the children’s animation instructor herself.

At least as interesting is watching great, selected cartoons together. At the beginning, the team of AnimEst festival sent us selections of their children’s program. Afterwards, I started to compile different selections, based on my previous experiences with animations for children.

One of children’s favorites is the Miriam series, a stop motion of the Estonian Nukufilm Studio. It is not only visually different form the usual children’s series, but also the approach of the topics of everyday life.

These are all videos that give a lot of space for talking with children about various topics. About being different, about belonging to a community, about the relationship with the parents, and also, about the different feelings. It is interesting to observe their interpretations and share our own reflections, even if verbal communication is a challenge. (We can only understand each other thanks to the traducing of their teacher, Irina Komissarova).

The Filmbilder Studio’s Animanimals episodes are short and funny, easy to understand videos. They are excellent not only from the point of view of graphic/animation ideas, but all of them have a simple and very importnat message that even small children can understand.

It is also uplifting to see how children tune in to these sessions week after week. And how they already prepare for our newest gathering. While at first I experienced this contribution as a social duty, today I feel that, due to all the great organizers and volunteers, a real community has been formed here, where it is good to belong.

Kassay Réka