A fashion designer who fled the war in Ukraine has been sharing her artistic skills with children in central Japan's Yamanashi Prefecture to thank the community where she now lives.

Yelyzaveta Zvolynska has been in Yamanashi since last May.

On Monday, she visited a nursery school in Kofu City with two other teachers, where they taught children how to use paper mache to make storks. The bird is cherished by Ukrainians.

The instructors also taught the kids the names for each of the bird's parts in English and practiced saying them.

One girl said it was difficult to make the stork's eye, but she felt her bird turned out all right.

A boy said he worked hard on folding pieces of newspaper so they would end up looking like a bird.

Zvolynska said she wanted to do something useful for people in Yamanashi. She said she thought the only thing she could do was art-related, and was glad if it helped the children improve their skills.