A Co Down business has teamed up with the Eurovision Euro Festival and the Junior Academy of Science Ukraine to bring together children from Liverpool and Ukraine ahead of the international song festival.
Comber based Go Fly Your Kite delivered a series of workshops to kids in Merseyside and Kyiv ahead of the festival which culminated in the children designing their own kites which were flew simultaneously in Liverpool and Ukraine.
Speaking to Belfast Live, Glenn Heasley explained that they were the only successful bid to join the festival from the island of Ireland.
Read more: Paul O’Grady to make posthumous appearance in Eurovision short film
"We submitted our interest and in total there was almost 700 submissions. That was then narrowed down to 50 then we were part of the last 24 and were then commissioned for a project which is called 'Land Sky, Home and Dreams'," he said.
"We proposed that we would do workshops with children in Merseyside and also do simultaneous workshops in Ukriane.
"Logistically, at the very start of the project we were wondering how we would do that with the war situation.
"We partnered up the Junior Academy of Science Ukraine in Kyiv and had someone take the lead on the project over there."
Glenn sent the same resources that they would be using to deliver the project in Liverpool to Ukraine and the children took part in the workshops at the same time which culminated in a finale on Friday where the kids flew the kites they designed.
"We use proper material kites and in Ukraine there is a very famous artist called Maria Sustova who created three different templates," he added.
"The children then put the template under the kite and trace the template onto the kite with permanent ink.
"When they traced their design, they coloured it in and then built the kite."
Glenn said that Go Fly Your Kite is honored and privileged to be part of Euro Festival 2023 and they are looking forward to reaching out to the rest of the Eurovision World.
READ NEXT:
Ukrainian Eurovision act says UK is their 'family' as contest kicks off
UK Eurovision singer Mae Muller says song contest training 'like bootcamp'
Eurovision star Sonia delivers stirring message after uniting with refugee choir in Liverpool
For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here and sign up to our daily newsletter here.
