The Behind Blue Eyes charity project presented the first episode of The Blue Eyed Podcast, a podcast with children talking about their everyday life and dreams against the backdrop of the big war. The series was recorded during expeditions to the frontline Kherson, Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia regions during 2023
About The Blue Eyed Podcast
The project team says that with the podcast they ‘want to give children the opportunity to speak out and reflect’.
‘We talked to children in an environment familiar to them: we set up our studio right in their homes, yards, playgrounds, then turned on the recording and just listened and were inspired by their thoughts, — Artem Skorokhodko, co-founder of Behind Blue Eyes, explains. — We didn’t set out to be professional documentary filmmakers. We just wanted to give the kids a chance to express themselves and reflect, because their opinions deserve time and attention. Also, they seemed to enjoy the process’.
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About the first episode of the podcast
The first episode was recorded in the village of Chernobaivka, Kherson region, in the spring of 2023.
Its heroes are 9-year-old Vika, 12-year-old Heorhii, 8-year-old Veronika, 10-year-old Nazar and 10-year-old Kostiantyn Olehovych — children told what they like to do most of all, how they see their future and what they dream about.
‘Some of them love drawing and crafting, some of them love playing outside, and some of them are more interested in watching the ducks in the yard. They dream of becoming police officers and football stars, and talk about how they will name their own battalion or invest in bitcoin’, the Behind Blue Eyes team adds.
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You can listen to the first episode of The Blue Eyed Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, Megogo and YouTube, and soon — on Google Podcast. Episodes will be released weekly, and its heroes will be children from Velyka Oleksandrivka, Lupareve, Balabyne and Snihurivka.
The Behind Blue Eyes project was founded in 2022, after the outbreak of a full-scale war. The idea for the project came to Dmytro and Artem during volunteer trips to three de-occupied villages in Chernihiv region: Yahidne, Sloboda, and Lukashivka. For several months they provided food and basic necessities to the local residents — there were many children among them, ‘who became volunteers’ friends and exuded that shine that we wanted to capture in difficult times’.
During one of the trips Dima and Artem handed out disposable film cameras to all willing children and asked them to photograph whatever they wanted during the week. The main condition was that there were no set rules or wishes for the photos.
The goal of the project was not only to document the effects of war and the world around children, but also to realize children’s dreams and desires. The organizers asked local children to write their personal wishlists to ‘show them that creativity can be a powerful tool to realize their own dreams’ which ‘should not be taken away by war’.
Then the team visited the de-occupied villages of Zaporizhzhia region, went on an expedition to the liberated Kherson region and frontline Mykolaiv region.
The Strategic Media Support Program project implements the Lviv Media Forum with financial support from People in Need (PIN) and Pioneer Foundation.
