Maria, 15 years old, lives in Mykolaivka

»I met Yellow Bus for the first time in 2014. Volunteers of Yellow Bus came to our school and they helped us to rebuild it. Since then we have worked together a lot and I have visited two summer camps from Yellow Bus. Yellow Bus also helped us online and I learned from them new things about cinema. It was the first time for me that I learned something about film and cinema.
I find information through social media and articles on the internet. About my place Mykolaivka I have not heard any false reports until now, but our neighbor town Slowjansk was falsely reported as a place where a child was crucified, but that was a false news.
I was in Mykolaivka when the war broke out here. Maybe, that made an impression on me, but now we're living here and volunteers helped us to rebuild our city. I was ten years old when the war was in Mykolaivka and I witnessed the shootings.
It also happens that I discover false news on social media, however you don't know it right away, but you have only a suspicion that it might be wrong. And then I start with other sources to check if these messages are correct or wrong. I use sources with which I have had good past experiences. However, I don't write comments in social networks, but only draw conclusions for myself. And then I tell my acquaintance about which media channels they can trust and which they can't.
I think outsiders can not understand what war really feels like, you have to go through it yourself. For example, it's difficult to understand when war is going on abroad, and before 2014 we did not have a war here either. And in the past - before 2014 - we would not have understood what war really meant. And it's the same with people who did not experience the war by themselves; they can not understand us correctly.
I also have acquaintances in the occupied territories whom I met in Yellow Bus's summer camps. I have contact with some of these children and we are still talking to each other. But we don't talk at all about the war. We just talk like friends and there are good friendships between us. We can also visit each other and go for a walk.
Personally, the war affected me because I had friends who moved away due to the war and whom I never saw again. And that hit me because the war destroyed my friendships and took my friends away.
I still get scared today when I hear loud noises, but otherwise not so much has changed with me. Everything has been rebuilt and there isn't much destruction of houses here.«

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