The educational project “HOVORY”, developed and implemented in Lviv, has won the national “Osvitoria.Media Award 2026” in the “Discovery of the Year” category. The award recognises initiatives that are transforming approaches to education and delivering tangible results for communities.
“HOVORY” is a comprehensive model for keeping children safe in schools. It combines clear protection standards, training for pupils and adults, and a digital tool for requesting help. The aim of the project is to build a culture of trust in schools, where a child is confident they will be heard, supported and protected.
The initiative is implemented by the Ukrainian Catholic University’s Child Dignity Centre in partnership with the Department of Education and Culture of Lviv City Council. One of the key elements of the system is the “HOVORY” button in the electronic diary: through it, children can report risks, violations of rights or dangerous situations, either anonymously or openly.
According to the organisers, the project currently covers more than 80,000 pupils in 131 schools. Over 4,030 educators and more than 570 representatives of educational institutions are involved in the work. In just the first six months of the button’s operation in the electronic diary, children submitted 87 requests, enabling schools and specialists to respond promptly to cases that required intervention and support.
Lviv City Council emphasises that winning the “Osvitoria.Media Award 2026” is not only recognition of the work already done, but also a signal that Lviv’s experience can be useful for other communities in Ukraine. During meetings with colleagues from other regions, representatives of the city’s education sector talk about the “HOVORY” model, share their developments and encourage the creation of similar systems based on local resources.
Head of the UCU Child Dignity Centre, Khrystyna Shabat, stresses that the project is considered a success and that further development is planned. The team sees the next step as implementing the model in one of the cities in eastern Ukraine, where children are studying in a hybrid format or online.
According to the organisers, the initiative’s ambitions go beyond the school walls. In the longer term, they want every space where a child spends time to be safe: educational, cultural or other institutions working with children. This is about creating systematic violence prevention, clear rules of interaction and mechanisms for providing help, so that every child knows when and whom they can turn to and receives feedback.
“In the longer term, we want not only every school to be safe, but any institution that comes into contact with children: so that they have established systems for working with children, violence prevention, so that the children in their care feel safe, know that they should speak up when something is not OK, know whom to turn to, and receive feedback,” emphasised Khrystyna Shabat.