Producing news for kids in Ukraine
What kind of news and entertainment content do children who spend their childhood in a war zone actually need? The public broadcaster Suspilne in Ukraine has set out to produce helpful content for young audiences.
"We want to make something for the children in Ukraine, a place where they can find information but also entertainment," says Olga Avrakhova, a producer for kids' content for the Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne . Since Russia's full-scale invasion more than three years ago, an entire generation in Ukraine is destined to spend their childhood between bomb attacks, destruction of their home country and anxiety about the future.
Adding to their distress is the fact that an end to the war seems a long way off.
"For the children it is important to understand what is happening around them," Avrakhova explained. "Many of them are still consuming Russian media out of habit and because the Russians simply produce a lot more than we do. But these children live in the middle of a news hurricane, not always knowing what is true and what is fake. So, it is very important to sort everything for them and give them true, healthy information. We try and speak their language, give them reliable sources, so they have someone they can trust. This is important for their everyday life and for their future."
Suspilne has produced content for children and young adults, including cartoons and audio-stories for those aged 2 to 6 under the program name "Brobaks" and TikTok- and Youtube videos and Instagram reels with breaking news content for older children between 9 and 14 years under the program name "Collider ". "The attention span of our young users is extremely short," said Avrakhova. "Therefore, it is our task to always find hooks, something fun and interesting that really catches their attention and makes them watch the news until the end."
100 percent reality, no taboos
According to Avrakhova, it is critical to meet young viewers at eye level and to not refrain from discussing sad or difficult topics.
"Our aim is 100 percent reality, no taboos," she said. "But of course, there are topics that are more difficult to approach and where we really need to think about how to tell them to young audiences. We are quite new to this and sometimes we are still searching for the right language to tell these stories, because it is very sensitive."
But this should not deter the producers of kids' content from addressing the war's consequences, she added.
"One of our cartoons is about a dog named Toto and his friends, other small animals, who go to kindergarten every day," she said. "In one of the episodes, you see a dad wearing a volunteer uniform. Or you will see that one of the kids has a prosthetic body part. We will not explain how exactly this happened, but we show aspects that children might come across in their daily lives."
Another Brobaks format is "Brave Tales," therapeutic fairy tales that aired shortly after the Russian invasion and that aim to help children and parents deal with chaotic or even life-changing events.
The 'Brave Tales' are therapeutic fairy tales in audio format designed to help children and their families deal with traumatic experiences Image: Suspilne Ukraine
Producing captivating, interesting and informative content for young Ukrainians is a Suspilne aim. To attract younger audiences, 'Collider' features popular influencers such as Lera Peshka, who in his show 'Cyber House' advises on cyber security. The Youtube format Ta Nevzhe? [EN: Really?] and the TikTok-News-Format Hto.pro.sho [EN: Whover, whatever] focus on political events but also popular culture and entertainment.
Show host Vlad Rudnitskyy said working with influencers is important. "My audience already knows me as a blogger, so they might also be interested in news content coming from a familiar face," he said. "To get young people interested, we use modern slang, memes and internet trends, things that are all part of their culture." His colleague Yuliia Petrenko adds that experimenting with different formats is another way to capture attention: "We use a lot of different formats such as classic news, blitz polls, blogs, vlogs and sketches. I think sketches are particularly fun because they allow you to act out and explain a complicated topic in a simple and entertaining way."
In the 'Cyber House' programme, young people learn how to deal critically with the media Image: Suspilne Ukraine
Media production in a war zone
The war, like with all matters of life in Ukraine, also affects media production.
"So far - and we can almost say, fortunately - most of the attacks have taken place at night, when we are not working," said Avrakhova. "During attacks, of course we need to halt the entire production. But we have adapted many of our processes and routines to the war. Many of us are working remotely, we also have people replacing each other in case a moderator doesn't manage to get to the studio in time. For us, this is part of our daily lives, we are used to it, and it does not stop us from doing our work. The production must continue."
Learning from other media houses
The Suspilne team draws support and inspiration from other broadcasters when creating their programs. Team members visited Germany in 2024, and the following year, others visited Belgium, the Netherlands and France, with the aim in each country to meet other children's programming producers.
In spring 2025, members of the Suspilne team visited content producers for young audiences in the Netherlands, Belgium and France. Image: Suspilne Ukraine
"Everyone faces very similar challenges," said Avrakhova, including, "the short attention span of our audiences, and the strong competition with other online sources of entertainment and information."
But one thing surprised her: "Many of the other media houses have been producing kids' content for several decades. Compared to this we are very new – and the parents' generation in Ukraine also did not grow up with children's programs, so they also need to be convinced. We can still learn a lot from other broadcasters."
Meeting up with schools and students
At the same time, Suspilne aims to include more young people and schools into the editorial process and production. The "Collider" team visits schools across the country to meet with students from grade 5 to 8. They present their programs, gather feedback, discuss new format ideas with the students and offer them the chance to practice working behind and in front of the camera.
From summer 2025, the Suspilne team will be visiting schools across the country to get in touch with the young target groups Image: Suspilne Ukraine
"We asked our audiences to contact us via social media and tell us where they are waiting for Collider to visit, and we received more than 100 responses asking us to visit their schools," said Yulia Dychuck, Suspilne's director of children and youth content. "Those include the regions Zhytomyr, Volhynia, Zaporizhzhya, Kiev, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv and many other cities where the children are watching our content and waiting to get to know our team."
Members of the Suspilne team, Olga Avrakhova, Daria Yanushkevych, Vlad Rudnitskyy and Yuliia Petrenko, show young people throughout the country that there are alternatives to the Russian-language programme Image: Suspilne Ukraine
According to Olga Avrakhova, the team will continue the visits at the beginning of the new school year in the fall.
"We want to visit as many schools as possible so that the children even in the smallest villages know that there is news and content just for them," she said. "We want to give them something that offers them hope and shows them that in addition to their parents, there are other people who care and worry about them, about their mental health and education. This is very important for us."
Together with the Ukrainian public broadcaster (Suspilne) and the media organization Lviv Media Forum , DW Akademie is working on the project "Strengthening Independent Media for a strong democratic Ukraine" (2024-2026), financed by the European Commission and supported by the German Federal Foreign Office.
The project aims to sustainably increase the capacity of independent media, including Ukrainian public service broadcasting, to promote constructive and open dialogue among the Ukrainian population and to support the National Council for Television and Radio Broadcasting on its way to meeting EU standards.
DW Akademie provides comprehensive support to the Suspilne Kids News team in its professionalization and international networking. This is done through strategic consulting, mentoring, training and providing equipment, as well as through targeted exchange with German and European public broadcasters.
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