2026.03.25
Some places appear as nothing more than inconspicuous dots on a map. Yet when you truly step into them, you realize those dots are not abstract—they carry breath, warmth, and memory; they hold a kind of reality that has not yet been disciplined by language.
On March 18, 2026, a delegation from the Grandview Institution(GVI) traveled to the suburb of Kyiv to visit children living in a collective resettlement site. Since the outbreak of war in 2022, Ukraine has seen a large number of internally displaced persons (IDPs). Kyiv has become one of the largest destinations for internally displaced populations in the country. The site we visited is a typical modular resettlement community on the outskirts of Kyiv—one of the medium- to long-term solutions established after the war to accommodate displaced people. These communities consist of rows of container-like converted housing units, each accommodating one family or shared by several individuals. They also include basic facilities such as simple classrooms, shared kitchens, children’s activity rooms, and small medical stations, along with essential utilities like electricity, heating, and water—sufficient, though not always fully reliable. Compared with temporary shelters, such settlements more like miniature communities and offer greater stability. Most of these modular communities are the result of cooperation between international aid organizations and the Ukrainian government.
The children sat quietly, their curiosity unadulterated. They asked where we came from and what our lives were like. Eagerly, they shared fragments of their daily routines—what time they wake up, who likes drawing, who is good at handicrafts. Their stories lacked a complete sense of timeline, yet carried an undeniable authenticity—a truth belonging purely to the present moment.
Most of the children come from regions hardest hit by the conflict, such as Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kharkiv. Some are so young that even the concept of “hometown” has yet to take shape. They do not really know where they come from; those place names are, to them, merely sounds repeated by adults. Before memory could take root, displacement had already begun. Before they could have a past, they were pushed into the future.
And yet, they still run, jump, and play. Their laughter resists fragmentation and chaos; it is also a quiet resistance to any incomplete explanation of the world.
As we handed out small gifts, two little girls suddenly came up and hugged me tightly. Their arms were gentle, but the attachment was unmistakable—like a silent trust, or an unthinking choice. When do people reach out to others? Perhaps precisely when they are unsure whether the world is safe.
The children had also prepared gifts for us: uneven drawings filled with bold colors; simple handicrafts, their edges still marked by haste; and a dragon woven over nearly twenty hours by a teenage girl. “I only learned you were coming the day before, so I had to rush to finish it,” she said shyly, almost apologizing for what she seemed to think was clumsiness. Yet the dragon was intricately crafted. It felt less like an object and more like a manifestation of persistence: under extremely limited conditions, still striving to complete something whole. Perhaps what people truly cannot give up is never material—it is the capacity to give.
While speaking with the camp administrators, the children’s voices drifted toward us from not far away, rising and falling intermittently, forming a strange contrast with our conversation. On one side: systems, resources, resettlement, the future. On the other: laughter, embraces, drawing paper, and paint not yet dry. We hope they never have to understand the complex and tainted aspects of the world. We hope their world can be explained, categorized, and drawn into grand narratives of power and order as late as possible. Once drawn into such narratives, many pure emotions are renamed, reordered, or even questioned. Those immersed in them speak of power, interests, and exchange, using grand words to obscure the loss of detail. Like beasts trapped in cages, they retain their posture but have long lost their true strength—the ability to reach others and change individual lives.
By contrast, these children are incomplete, uncertain—and precisely for that reason, their existence is so immediate. Their laughter is not symbolic; their embraces do not point to any higher meaning—they are meaning in themselves. They will not be counted, will not enter reports, and will not serve as part of any argument. Yet they will always appear in unexpected moments, illuminating life.