Why we wrote a song about missing home in Ukraine

Ukrainian children and teenagers have recorded a single about the trauma of leaving their homes before beginning a new life in Nottingham.

Dodomu, meaning "home", is being released to coincide with the fourth anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion on Tuesday.

Several members of the Ukrainian School Band have been separated from fathers and grandparents since moving to the UK.

The group's creative producer says the track articulates their hope as well as their suffering.

Guitarist Olksandra Harmash, 19, helped come up with some of the lyrics.

She told the BBC her words were inspired by missing her father.

"The emotions just go to the lyrics, I just miss home, I want to go home," she said.

Violinist and singer, Valeria, 13, says that homesickness was very challenging.

"I just wanted to go back to my school but I knew it wasn't possible," she said.

The project's creative producer, Iryna Muha, says hearing the lyrics for the first time revealed the scale of their suffering.

"It's about how difficult it is for a young person to find a new place and being forced out of your familiar environment, and how to look for strength and hope for the future," she said.

Iryna also hopes it will give Ukrainian refugees a way to help their home country by raising money.

She says donations from the YouTube release will go to the Ohmatdyt Children's Hospital, which was badly damaged in a Russian missile strike in July 2024.

Artem, 11, who sings on the track, says he received treatment at the hospital in Kyiv before moving to the UK.

"It's like giving them back. It makes me feel really happy because it's a really big hospital," he said.

Karina, 17, says she has lost contact with grandparents who are under Russian occupation, while her other grandparents are only 15km (9m) from the front line.

"It's really terrible there, it just feels like a Russian Roulette, constantly getting bombs and drones," she said.

Valeria, 13, adds that most of her family are still in Ukraine and her father is serving in the army there.

"Missing them is the worst part and I can't visit them and talk in real life," she said.

The teenager said she barely spoke English when she arrived in summer 2022, but she is now fluent.

She adds that her "wonderful" English friends had supported her through the darkest times.

"In future, I hope I will get into law school, I've improved my English a lot," she said.

"I have a more complex vocabulary than some of my English classmates that have lived here their whole life."

Meanwhile, 19-year-old Olksandra has now joined De Montford University in Leicester and hopes her studies will help her contribute to a brighter future for her home country.

"The reason why I started learning architecture is to build up Ukraine after the war," she said.

"I hope to go back to Ukraine, I hope to see my father finally", she adds.

Verse 1

Walking through places where I don't know anyone,

I melt into the snow of cold exhaustion.

My heart is burning — not hurting, but blazing,

For my life is there… beyond the edge of the road.

No letters, no sounds, no signs anywhere -

My voice in my chest is slowly fading,

I search for myself in the fragments of moments.

And my soul is begging to go back.

Chorus

How can I find a new home

When my heart has stayed there?

How do I gather myself

if every step is a farewell to life?

I'm looking for warmth

In the glow of strangers' windows at night…

But no one is waiting for me,

And there's no way back home any more.

Where is my home, where is it?

Verse 2

I just want to go home,

Where they wait for me with the kindest warmth.

But it's time to live anew,

So there must be a place where I can call home.

No letters, no sounds, no signs anywhere -

My voice in my chest is slowly fading,

I search for myself in the fragments of moments.

And my soul is begging to go back.

Chorus

Verse 3

Maybe over there beyond mountains and seas

I'll find where my "self" falls silent again…

But for now I'm wandering between "here" and "never,"

And I have with me only a shadow of life.

Chorus

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