Alexander, 14 years old, lives in Mykolaivka

»I met Yellow Bus for the first time in the spring of 2017.
We had written a script and waited until Yellow Bus came to our city. I was very surprised that people from Kyiv's Yellow Bus came to our city. They had a professional staff and all the equipment. Yellow Bus has left me with a very positive impression and I always wanted to participate in further projects of them. It was the first time that I learned how to make a movie and the basic knowledge, which I learned there, was interesting and helpful.
I get my information, just like my classmates, through social networks. And I also speak with older people and I'm connected to organizations via the internet.
Personally, I was not directly affected by the war. When the war started here, my parents and I moved away from this place. But I can remember that I played in a sandbox at the age of eight years and we heard explosions.
It always depends on the individual, whether one can understand from books or pictures, what happens in the war. There are people who are scared the first time, even if they have not seen anything about the war. And there are other people who are always looking for or need new messages to understand what is going on. But you can rarely understand the war only by media, you have to experience it yourself. I also don't fully understand why it all happens.
I'm especially interested in photography and audio in the media sector. Audio because I'm an audio director in our group. Some people become audio directors because they like music. But with me it was the other way round: As an audio director, I first got to know music correctly. And I like the photography, hence I can edit the photos and play with them.
I also used to have friends in the occupied territories but our communication stopped because they moved abroad. If you have to leave the place where you were born then that is a terrible experience. So, suddenly, anything that is familiar to you can disappear. And then you don't want to go back to the old place because you do not want to see the destruction.
I don't think the war has changed me much, even though my parents and relatives say I've become more serious. And my relatives in the city are still afraid of certain sounds which make them feel that they need to move in a shelter for safety.
But I feel normal.«

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