CHILD− and HOME+: Ukraine’s Deported Children and the People Bringing Them Home (First Edition)

Description

Since 2014, and at scale since 2022, Russia has deported and transferred children from occupied Ukraine. This twelve-week course book reads how they were taken, hidden and renamed, and how families, organizations and states search for each child and bring them home.

Full description

Since February 2022, children have been taken from the occupied parts of Ukraine to Russia and moved within the territory Russia occupies. Ukraine’s Children of War portal counts at least 20,651 children deported or forcibly displaced, and 2,689 returned, by 18 October 2026. In March 2026 a United Nations Commission of Inquiry found that Russian authorities committed crimes against humanity of deportation and forcible transfer of children.

This book reads how the taking worked: children moved from occupied towns and institutions and through camps presented as “rest” stays; documents and citizenship changed; placement with Russian families; “re-education”; and denial. Every figure carries its source, its date and what it counts. No real child is named.

The plus side is the search: registries, Ukraine’s state bodies, Bring Kids Back UA, the organizations and mediators who bring children back, and the mothers and grandmothers who travel to fetch them, with the rights of the child and international justice beside them.

The book is a twelve-week course. Each week reads its story on three circles (personal, cultural, structural) and in four times: before, what the empire brought, since 1991, and the future we choose. River Street follows one fictional girl, nine-year-old Sofiia Melnyk, onto a bus, through months of silence, and home again; every event behind her story is documented with sources. We Remember keeps the children taken since 2014 as counts, each with its date and source, and names none of them. For Every Age gives four guides: for children, for youth, for a community evening, and for teachers and leaders.

This first international English edition from DROKACADEMY (2026) serves courses in social work, child and youth care, human rights, law, history, education, and Ukrainian and Canadian studies, as well as community groups, teachers, families and readers of Ukrainian descent. Corrections are welcome at sasha@drokacademy.ca; please do not send any child’s story.

This is the first edition. Our goal is to find people with lived experience of what it describes, including Crimean Tatar and Lemko readers, survivors, their families and descendants, and their communities, and to review the book with them for accuracy. If you have lived this history, or you find something that is not accurate or something that is missing, please write to sasha@drokacademy.ca. The second edition will carry every correction, and the author is looking for co-authors who will shape it. A Ukrainian edition, ВКРАДЕНІ− і ДОДОМУ+ (Vkradeni− i Dodomu+), is planned. We will keep working toward it and are asking people to help with translation and review: write to sasha@drokacademy.ca.

Inside

• Twelve weeks, one for each class of a course term, in four parts: CARE, POWER, the minus word and the plus word
• River Street: one fictional family and the documented history behind every week
• Every week read on three circles (personal, cultural, structural) and in four times: before, what the empire brought, since 1991, the future we choose
• Three readings a week, discussion questions, a research task and key terms
• We Remember: who the filter took, with dated, sourced counts, and where the names are kept
• For Every Age: four guides, for children, youth, a community evening, and teachers and leaders

The author takes no income from this book. Proceeds after production costs support students. The author supports student caregivers and those who stand with Ukraine.

Teaching it? Instructors can request a free review copy, and every student in a course that adopts the book receives it free. Write to sasha@drokacademy.ca.

Author line

Dr. Oleksandr Kondrashov (Sasha) is the founder of DROKACADEMY, a healing and writing space in Kamloops, British Columbia, and a social work educator who currently teaches at Thompson Rivers University. Born in Lviv, Ukraine, and in Canada since 2004, he has taught over 7,000 students across five Canadian universities. DROKACADEMY’s motto guides this series: Love. Care. Share. Child welfare is at the heart of what he teaches: he created the GUARDIAN child welfare curriculum, and his Canadian Mama, a child welfare social worker, showed him what it means to keep a child safe and to keep looking.