Children in Liverpool take Eurovision to the sky!

Children from across Liverpool City Region will unite with youngsters in Ukraine in a poignant kite-flying display, representing their soaring dreams and shared aspirations.

On Friday 5 May, as part of Liverpool’s Eurovision host city programme, 450 primary school pupils will gather on The Tower Ground, New Brighton, to fly a kite at exactly the same time as 450 children in four Ukrainian cities – Kyiv, Lviv, Khmelnytskyi and Poltava. These cities have been chosen as when connected, they form a rhombus shape on the map, reminiscent of a kite.

In this moving project which is called Land & Sky, Home & Dreams, each pupil has designed their own flag during dedicated workshops, using their artwork to showcase what their hopes are for their future. 

And although all 900 youngsters are working together on this powerful shared artwork, there will be subtle, impactful differences in the flying itself.

In Ukraine, not all 450 children can gather in the same location in case at any point they need to find safety in an underground shelter – as a result the children will be located in four regions across the country. Also, the kite strings in Ukraine are ten metres shorter than in Liverpool so that the kites do not enter the no-fly zone.

The Liverpool City Region schools taking part are:

Emmaus Church of England & Catholic Primary School, Croxteth

St Paul’s Catholic Primary School, West Derby

Matthew Arnold Primary School, Dingle

Childwall Church of England Primary School, Childwall

St Michael’s in the Hamlet Primary School

Woodlands Primary School, Formby

Woolton Primary School, Woolton

In Ukraine, the workshops have been facilitated by the Junior Academy of Sciences. The schools taking part are:

Taras Shevchenko No. 112, Kiev

European Collegium, Kiev

3D school, Lviv

Poltava Gymnasium No. 25, Poltava

Volodymyr Krasytskyi Khmelnytskyi Gymnasium No. 1, Khmelnytskyi

Primary school No. 1 of the Khmelnytsky City Council, Khmelnytskyi

Land & Sky, Home & Dreams forms part of the Eurovision EuroFestival which will see 24 commissions – 19 of which are co-productions between UK and Ukrainian organisations – take over the city and promise to be thought-provoking, evocative, fun, joyful, moving and hopeful.

This particular project has been made possible thanks to the support of Spirit of 2012, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Ukrainian Institute. It is being delivered by Go Fly Your Kite – a family-run business based in Northern Ireland which specialises in delivering art kite workshops and projects linked to developing science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills in children and adults across Europe.

For all the latest Eurovision news keep checking in with us at The Guide Liverpool.