Technology as a game changer in small communities: a case study of a school DIY lab from savED and the Tokarev Foundation

STEM education as a response to the challenges of war

The need to develop STEM education today is closely related to overcoming the consequences of educational losses, that is, gaps in children's knowledge and skills during the war. According to the results of the international PISA-2022 education quality study , Ukrainian teenagers in mathematics showed a lag of one and a half years behind their peers from Europe and the USA. In natural science subjects, this indicator is two and a half years. And this is data collected only after the first nine months of a full-scale invasion. The main barriers to the full assimilation of knowledge in children, which school teachers today call, are the loss of concentration skills, decreased motivation, and problems with working in teams that arose during several years of distance learning. Supporting the restoration of access to quality offline education during the war was one of the reasons why the savED charitable foundation started its work in 2022.

Today, thanks to educational, social and infrastructure projects, savED works comprehensively in war-affected regions and returns safe educational activities there. The foundation creates underground schools, temporary educational spaces and digital centers "Ulyky" for extracurricular activities with students under a specially developed "ketchup" program. The main goal of the initiatives is to provide urgent educational needs in communities so that children can develop and socialize in their native villages and towns right now. An additional solution for schools that are resuming offline learning has recently become a new direction of savED projects - the creation of student STEM spaces.

“We work in an ecosystem: after the return of basic access to offline education in communities, the foundation creates additional opportunities there. We were prompted to make STEM support one of them by teachers with whom savED works in the regions. They have repeatedly told us that students are interested in learning with practical projects and studying computer science or natural sciences experimentally. This is about adapting to offline learning and regaining interest in disciplines that some children may have lost during distance education,” says Anna Putsova, co-founder of the savED charitable foundation.

The desire to create their own technological projects is demonstrated by the students themselves even at school age. Among them are participants in the educational program for teenagers on the development of small communities from savED — UActive , thanks to which schoolchildren learn project management for 10 months and implement their own ideas for the development of their villages and towns. In 2023, a team of high school students from the deoccupied village of Katyuzhanka in the Kyiv region initiated the creation of their own STEM class at school within UActive, which later gave rise to a student 3D printing club . With the support of the foundation community, the schoolchildren found funding to purchase the necessary equipment.

“When the children themselves made the STEM initiative a reality and showed us, adults, that they needed it now, we realized that such a direction could be useful in practice in many educational institutions. And very soon the puzzle was finally put together: partners began to contact us who wanted to support the creation of such locations,” recalls Anna Putsova.

In 2024, the savED Foundation, with the support of one of the Ukrainian IT companies, created its first DIY classroom (translated from English as “Do It Yourself”). All the necessary STEM equipment was installed on the basis of the existing savED digital educational center in Mykolaiv region , where children take classes on overcoming educational losses - in the house of culture of the village of Bereznehuvate. In fact, this was the foundation’s first attempt to implement such a project. Soon, the idea of ​​creating a comprehensive space within a specific educational institution, practically “from scratch”, interested the Tokarev Foundation. This organization is a technological philanthropy that promotes the development of human capital in different corners of Ukraine through the implementation of innovations in the fields of EdTech and HealthTech. It cooperates with educational initiatives that train thousands of IT specialists, and also supports expanding opportunities for girls and young women in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

“We were truly impressed by the incredible work of savED in Ukrainian communities, so the interaction with the foundation became our first step towards popularizing STEM education in the school environment. By investing in educational projects such as the DIY laboratory, we create new opportunities for young people who will create business projects and develop innovations in their regions in the future. This will become the basis for the restoration of Ukraine in the post-war period,” says Anastasia Deeva, Executive Director of the Tokarev Foundation.

Pilot DIY laboratory in Dnipropetrovsk region

The first comprehensive DIY space was created by the philanthropists on the basis of a support educational institution in the Tsarychansk community in the Dnipropetrovsk region. Today, the local lyceum has over 800 local students and several dozen internally displaced children. With the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Tsarychansk schoolchildren studied remotely for over a year, then in a blended format, and finally in 2024, after the renovation of the shelters in the lyceum, the children returned to offline classes. To prepare children for the resumption of full-time education and to help them make up for their educational losses, the savED Foundation and its partners created a digital educational center in one of the lyceum premises. There, together with the foundation’s tutors, about 100 children attend extracurricular classes every day.

At the same time, to engage students in additional offline activities, local teachers resumed holding science and technology clubs. For example, as soon as the robotics club started and the children learned a programming language, a local computer science teacher independently bought several sets of computer parts and ballpoint pens, and from these the students made a controlled robot-drawing machine. Later, the students created a model airplane, a homemade quadcopter, and a model of a smart fire safety system for the school, with which they participated and won prizes in student science competitions. The main problem in supporting such initiatives at the community level, according to educators, is the lack of comprehensive mentoring programs and necessary equipment.

“We have been trying to introduce STEM into the educational process since 2017. But everything actually happened only on our own: computer science and labor training teachers made projects with students, sometimes from improvised materials, and borrowed some equipment. In fact, before, children had not seen in practice what robotics, 3D modeling, and biotechnology are in one equipped space, but they are very interested in it,” says Olga Blokha, deputy director of the Tsarychansky Lyceum.

It was an active community that is already developing the natural sciences and mathematics direction of education in the frontline region that savED and Tokarev Foundation were looking for to create a pilot project of a DIY space, since similar solutions are more common in large cities of Ukraine.

“We purposefully chose a community where there is a desire to develop. savED knew the needs of Tsarychanka well, because the foundation already works with its teachers and students in a digital education center. When we learned about the plans to develop STEM activities in the local lyceum, we decided to create not a point solution, but a supporting solution for the entire community, thanks to which both schoolchildren and students of the local vocational lyceum will be able to engage in research workshops. In total, this involves more than 1 thousand students,” explains savED Partnership Manager Iryna Dasyuk.

Since the fall of 2024, savED and Tokarev Foundation have begun preparations for the creation of the space. Not only local educators in Tsarychanka helped to select the necessary equipment and design the location, but also the authors of already implemented successful educational STEM initiatives in Ukraine, such as Lviv Open Lab and Peremoha Lab at the National University "Chernihiv Polytechnic".

“The DIY lab is about a customized approach to the task of developing STEM education, because before launching, we studied what a specific community needs and what technologies can be useful and interesting for young people,” says Anastasia Deeva, executive director of the Tokarev Foundation.

In Tsarychanka, students and their mentors have already planned an eco-research of the local Oril River, and also have ideas for new projects in robotics and 3D modeling. Until recently, the only thing left to do was to create an interactive space where all this could be created using practical technologies.

How does a ready-made comprehensive STEM space function?

In March 2025, a DIY laboratory opened in Tsarychanka, which has two full-fledged research workshops with everything necessary for practical classes: 3D printers, lasers, an engraver, robotic devices and soldering kits, devices for working with wood, a set for photo and video shooting, and laboratory equipment for natural sciences. The rooms of the old and neglected school workshop, which was transformed into a STEM space, were renovated by the community. And filling the laboratory with equipment from savED and Tokarev Foundation cost over 1.6 million hryvnias. They are already planning to hold classes here daily for over 150 students in grades 5-11.

On the first day, in the ready-made DIY laboratory, schoolchildren tried out 3D scanning and chemical-physical experiments, connecting robotic devices, and laser engraving on wood. Students in grades 6-8 tested the work of the engraver especially carefully. For example, 12-year-old Teymur, who moved to the community from Avdiivka in the Donetsk region, had never seen such devices in his life, but before that he tried working with wood using a hand-held burner at a club in Tsarychanka. In the village, the boy has been attending school lessons offline since 2024 — until then, he had been studying remotely for two years.

"In 2022, my parents and I lived in a basement in Avdiivka. I taught lessons there, and overall it was very boring. This is my first time in a research laboratory, and there is an interesting movement going on here. I want to study all these lasers and program them. In the future, I dream of becoming an IT specialist and creating robots," says schoolboy Teymur, demonstrating how he designs and engraves a wooden ornament himself.

Two tutors work with 12-year-old Teymur, as well as with other students in the DIY space. These are local educators who will continue to mentor children in creating STEM projects with the support of savED. Ulyana, a 6th grader, has already tried her first attempts at 3D modeling and printing in the lab with a tutor. Using a special scanner, the girl created a three-dimensional model of her own hand on the computer.

“It’s cool and everything is pretty fast. I was already interested in this direction on the Internet, watched experiments on YouTube, so it wasn’t difficult to pick up the process itself when the teacher showed me how to do the scanning,” says Ulyana. The girl is thinking about a future profession in the field of programming or bioengineering, but admits that for now she wants to conduct the experiments in the school laboratory for her own leisure.

9th graders Iryna and Olena, who studied remotely for a total of three years during the pandemic and full-scale war, are conducting food experiments on their own for the first time in a long time — in a DIY space. “Right now we are making black and red artificial caviar from gelatin, broth, and dyes. Here we heat and mix the prepared substances. Where else can you do this in the village? It’s cool!” shares 14-year-old Iryna.

New school locations in DIY format

More than half of teenagers aged 10-15 surveyed in 2024 said they did not know what they wanted to become in the future. In this context, interactive STEM spaces with several locations with different directions are designed not only to interest children in science and technology, but also to give impetus to the general career guidance and socialization of children through teamwork on projects, say the benefactors.

"Such laboratories can become platforms where children can not only gain knowledge, but also participate in real projects, cooperate with enterprises, which will allow them to orient themselves at school age, how the market works and in which STEM areas it is possible to realize themselves in the future. At the same time, it is about developing both the individual skills of teenagers and the community as a whole, which will have expertise in arranging and improving space, and will use technologies to develop local innovations," says Anastasia Deeva, executive director of the Tokarev Foundation.

After launching a pilot format of a comprehensive laboratory in the Dnipropetrovsk region in 2025, the savED foundation plans to continue creating DIY spaces in various frontline regions.

“We believe that this new direction, like all our work, is not only about education, but also about life in communities in general, for which such DIY laboratories will become a starting point for recovery. When people see that change is possible, they begin to strive for more: they seek funding for recovery, apply for grants for professional development, and invite various organizations to cooperate. We strive to create flexible solutions that will become an impetus for growth where active social life during the war has only begun to revive,” says Anna Putsova, co-founder of the savED Foundation.

Further support for the development of STEM locations in communities is also of interest to technology companies and philanthropies such as the Tokarev Foundation. The initiation of the creation of new savED spaces together with partners will primarily begin with close consultations with affected communities, where access to quality offline education and the development of technological projects has long been difficult.

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