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Our nominees were considered for their initiative, creativity, teamwork and leadership skills, volunteering in the Ukrainian community, as well as achievements in their country of residence. 2021 call for nominations is now closed. Meet our top 30 under 30!
Camila was born in Argentina. She continues living and working as a dance teacher there. Camila started her training career at the kindergarten of the Ukrainian Society “Vidrodzhennia.” She also instructed national dancing in the Ukrainian People’s Dances “Danube” Ensemble for children aged 4 to 13.
Camila participates in Plast events. Besides, she participated in Virsky-Ukrainian National Dance Company dancer Andriy Demeschuk’s workshop seminar organization. Сamila also organizes Easter eggs painting workshops for children and youth and occasionally wins awards for skillful dance performances at festivals.
She represented the Ukrainian community at:
Cassian is the founder of the Ukrainian Canadian Students’ Union (SUSK) Endowment Fund and a former president of this organization. During his 15 years of active work in the community, Cassian has shown himself to be an enterprising and accountable leader, helping local Ukrainian student organizations, training new staff and establishing links with government agencies.
Since 2018, he has been the President of the Ukrainian Canadian Professional and Business Association of Ottawa, and since 2020, he has been the President of the Ukrainian Canadian Professional Business Federation, which Cassian revived after a decade of inactivity.
Participation in projects:
Christine is a former dancer of СУМ Dance Ensemble “Verchovyna,” Ukrainian Dance Company “Lehenda,” and an active member of the Ukrainian Youth Association (CYM). She started at СУМ as Vykhovnytsia, and by the age of 19, she started on the Board in a Bulavna position.
For the last four years, Christine has encouraged young people, primarily women, to join the СУМ Uprava and provided needed support and guidance. She organizes events to familiarize and unite young CYMivtsi. Since 2018 has been a teacher of the Youth Self-Development program where she teaches participants about their Ukrainian heritage and their place in the community. She also collaborates with the СУМ Women’s Club “Hurtok Nadiia” in Melbourne.
Christine is an active member of the Ukrainian community in Melbourne and considers keeping and spreading Ukrainian culture in Australia and the rest of the world her mission.
Project participation:
Daria moved to Poland from Kyiv in 2012. From 2016 to 2020, she was one of the leaders of the charity fund PTACH for Ukrainian children from Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts and their families affected by the Russo-Ukrainian war. Thanks to the efforts of the charity fund, more than 200 children received assistance.
She co-organized free camps for children in Wroclaw and became one of the co-founders of a project, in which volunteers from Ukraine and the diaspora help teenagers from the occupied and frontline territories to learn English and communicate with each other in Ukrainian.
Participation in projects:
Originally from Kyiv, Darya now heads the Ukrainian National Federation of Canada in Montreal in addition to chairing the Donation Control Committee at the organization. She decides which community projects need funding and distributes funds between schools, festivals and other events.
Darya studies medicine, deals with the issue of language barriers in science, conducts professional research, teaches at a Ukrainian Saturday school, and, at the age of 27, is a local community leader. The Ukrainian Canadian Congress awarded the talented young woman with the Youth Leadership Award.
Participation in projects:
Denis immigrated to Canada at a very young age, but he never forgot his Motherland and always took part in Ukrainian organizations’ initiatives in Canada as both a volunteer, and an organizer.
Denis left Canada to defend Ukraine from Russian aggression in the eastern combat area as a member of the “Carpathian Sich” Separate Volunteer Platoon. He joined the armed forces at the age of twenty-one secretly from his parents. When he came back from the war zone where he suffered psychological trauma as a result of the loss of his brothers in arms, Denis became one of the co-founders of the volunteer project «I’ve Returned». He continues to help Ukrainian soldiers receive qualified psychological help using Canadian experience of rehabilitating ex-soldiers.
Participation in projects:
Irina is a Prosvita Ukrainian National Ensemble participant, “Voice of Ukraine” radio program columnist, and SUM member in Argentine.
She promotes Ukraine through words and debunks myths about the Ukrainian diaspora. She joined Permanent International Media Monitoring Mission On Disinformation About Ukraine And The Ukrainian Diaspora in 2021.
At the 2018 Summer Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, she was an assistant and a translator for the Ukrainian delegation. She was a member of the CYM camp team three times. Since 2019, she is a Communications Officer of the organization.
Project participation:
Kateryna is a successful poet, translator and public figure known under the creative pseudonym Katja Novak. Kateryna graduated with honours from the Faculty of Philosophy of Ivan Franko University in Lviv, where she began to study the Estonian language.
She has translated several works from Estonian. Kateryna is often invited as an interpreter to events of Ukrainian associations and to official meetings with government or other structures, which contributes to the development of relations between Estonia and Ukraine.
Today she manages literary projects at the Center of Ukrainian Culture in Tallinn, while simultaneously teaching children at the Ukrainian Saturday school “Labora”.
Participation in projects:
At the age of 27, Katria managed to work in eight NGOs in the US, Canada, the Netherlands, Ukraine and Belgium, three government organizations and was involved in four departments of PLAST. Gradually, her civic activism grew into a career in the field of human rights, development and peacekeeping in the Eastern Partnership countries. Katria is working on projects related to fighting corruption, increasing media literacy and using historical memory as a weapon.
She has also repeatedly been a delegate from the UWC and SKUMO. In her free time, Katria helps students find career paths and participate in community life.
Participation in projects:
Liubov is a Ukrainian scientist from Germany who studies the issue of climate change and works on Europe’s largest supercomputer JUWELS. In 2019, for her scientific achievements, she was invited to participate in the Lindau Guidelines discussion panel with three Nobel laureates regarding global cooperation in science.
In addition to physics, Liubov has a passion for Ukrainian traditions and promotes them at the festival of cultures in Jülich.
Participation in projects:
Maksym is a public figure, teacher, actor, singer, and music producer at the avant-garde theater Yara Arts Group in New York. He is known for performances with Serhiy Zhadan and Hutsul Carolers, a modern interpretation of Lesya Ukrainka’s “Forest Song” and, most notably, the role of Yaro from the famous musical “Гуцулка Ксеня”.
He is also a member of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA) and the Ukrainian Youth Association, where he teaches music to children and organizes concert programs in camps. Maksym conducted musical programs of democratic demonstrations in support of the Revolution of Dignity in New York and Washington and performed at an all-Ukrainian concert dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the restoration of the Ukrainian state.
Participation in projects:
Mariana is a co-founder of the non-profit charity “Help Children of Ukraine Foundation”. She organizes charity events in support of sick children in Ukraine, raises funds for medicine and medical equipment and sends them to hospitals in Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, Kharkiv and Zhytomyr.
With the funds raised in the Ukrainian community of Los Angeles, she has already managed to send more than a ton of toys and clothes to orphans in Ukraine.
Mariana also helps the Ukrainian military on a volunteer basis at the Revived Soldiers Ukraine foundation.
Participation in projects:
Mark is a professional political journalist, from whose words the world learns the truth about Ukraine. He is the author of more than 40 articles on Ukraine, and U.S. and Europe policy toward Ukraine in prestigious American, European, and Ukrainian publications.
From 2020 to 2021, he was the Advisor and Coordinator of the political association Ukrainian Americans for Biden. In his free time, he leads an active life in the community, participates in the activities of the “Chornomortsi” PLAST group and sings in the Holy Family Church choir.
Select Publications:
Markian is the secretary of the Ukrainian Youth Association (CYM) in Australia. In his youth years, he attended Ukrainian Saturday Language school and Ukrainian traditional dancing, where he participated and performed in cultural events. After graduation from university, he was selected as an educator of the youngest group in CYM, and since then, he teaches young CYM members to keep Ukrainian culture, history, language, rituals, and traditions.
Markian also volunteered at the Invictus Games and participated in the organisation of the Ukrainian Charity Event, aiming to fundraise for the rehabilitation of Ukrainian soldiers and veterans.
Participation in projects:
2019 – 2020 – Choreographer for the Veselka Ukrainian Dance Ensemble Sydney
Maryna moved to the US to study at the prestigious New York University. But she could not settle for academic achievements alone, so she immersed herself in the life of the local Ukrainian community – she founded and became the head of her university’s Ukrainian Students Society.
Upon graduation, Maryna completed an internship at the United Methodist Women, after which she joined the team of representatives of the World Federation of Ukrainian Women’s Organizations (WFUWO). Her accomplishments include organization of events in support of Ukrainian culture and the women’s movement in New York, promotion of the truthful history of Ukraine and speeches against the violation of Crimean Tatars’ rights. While developing the Ukrainian community in the US, Maryna does not forget about her hometown, regularly visiting Kharkiv with lectures for students and with volunteer projects.
Participation in projects:
Mihai-Ciprian heads the Youth and Sports Commission of the Union of Ukrainians of Romania (UUR), the only representative parliamentary organization of the Ukrainian community in the country that is part of the Council of National Minorities of Romania. He actively participates in community life, helps lone and elderly people. He promotes the values and culture of the Ukrainian minority in Romania, as well as UUR programs and strategies among Ukrainian ethnic youth.
Mihai-Ciprian defends the rights, dignity and interests of young people from the diaspora, works with organizations in Romania and participates in international projects.
Roman is the founder and editor of the “Ukrainians.md” Ukrainian diaspora information portal in Moldova; since 2017, he is its permanent author and editor. Since 2015, he has been a regular participant in roundtables and conferences on cooperation between Romania, Ukraine and Moldova, as well as the UWC election monitoring missions in Ukraine. Since 2020, he has been writing articles for the Ukrainian portal “Institute for Democratization and Development”.
Roman has launched programs for Ukrainian youth in Moldova in the field of information literacy and security. In 2019, he completed an internship and then worked as a junior consultant on national minorities at the UN Office in Chisinau. For the last two years, he has been a regular participant in the OSCE/ODIHR election monitoring mission in Eastern and Southern Europe.
Participation in projects:
Roman has been heading the Ukrainian Canadian Students’ Union (SUSK) for the last two years. His duties include popularising organizations in the country and the world and providing assistance to Ukrainian students. In particular, Roman initiated SUSK Connect, an online database that lets talented youth unite and collaborate on projects, as well as find out about career opportunities and networks.
Besides these activities, Roman is an active participant in the virtual national awareness campaign about the Russian-Ukrainian War. He managed to fundraise $100,000 for this campaign.
Project participation:
Solomia represents the Ukrainian diaspora on the African continent and regularly participates in scientific and cultural events at Ukrainian Embassy in Algeria. Miss Adjabi knows Taras Shevchenko and Lesia Ukrainka’s writings and popularizes them among her countrymen. She also speaks French, Arabic, Berber, English, and German languages.
Solomia familiarizes Algerians with Ukrainian culture, talks about its advantages, travel opportunities, education, and trade between Ukraine and African countries. She also debunks stereotypes about the Ukrainian language, culture, and territories that Algerians have developed from the USSR.
Project Participation:
Svitlana moved to Norway only 2.5 years ago, but during this time she managed to become an active participant in the cultural life of the Ukrainian community, joining the local vocal ensemble. She not only sings well, but also teaches children at the Ukrainian Sunday school “Kobzar”. Svitlana participates in and organizes cultural and business events that improve Ukraine’s image in the world.
Participation in projects:
Teona was born in Tbilisi but was interested in the Ukrainian language, literature, history, and ethnography. During her studies at the Kakha Bendukidze Free University of Tbilisi, she led her own international Georgian-Ukrainian student projects with Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv students. During the Revolution of Dignity, Teona took part in Ukrainian diaspora activities and then became a volunteer in the international children’s camp “Sources of Tolerance.”
In 2016 Teona joined Ukrainian World Congress Youth Organizations (SKUMO) and founded the “Svitanok” Ukrainian Youth Organization in Georgia in 2017. Two years later, Teona was appointed as Vice President of SKUMO. Teona speaks six languages and teaches children. From 2021 Teona pursues Anticorruption Studies at the National University of “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” and simultaneously works at Georgian Parliamentary Library. Owing to her input, The National Parliamentary Library of Georgia and The National Research Restoration signed a memorandum of cooperation.
Participation in projects:
Vasyl is a member of the Association of Ukrainians in Portugal and in Great Britain. In his work, Vasyl combines cultural and business projects with diplomacy. Thanks to Bochko and active Ukrainians, the first monument to Taras Shevchenko was erected in Lisbon in 2019. Vasyl created the first Ukrainian section in the São Lázaro Public Library, as well as a YouTube channel to increase financial literacy. He is currently actively working to strengthen economic relations between Ukraine and Portugal.
Participation in projects:
Viktoriya moved to Riga to study at the Academy of Music. There she became the first graduate from Ukraine to complete studies with the language of instruction being Latvian. At the same time, Viktoriya stirred interest in Ukrainian traditional music in Riga’s music circles – for the first time in the faculty’s history, the diploma concert program was performed in the Ukrainian language, and Latvian students enjoyed learning a new repertoire.
The gifted young woman also provides language interpretation during official visits of Ukrainian dignitaries and presidents. In 2019, Viktoriya continued her studies at the Faculty of Translation, becoming interested in the sociolinguistic aspect of the reproduction of Ukrainian proper names in Latvian without the mediation of Russian. The topic of her master’s thesis brought to the forefront the issue of adequate reproduction of Ukrainian proper names in Latvia’s translation circles, which was the first such study in any of the Baltic states.
Achievements:
Volodymyr moved to Canada in 2014 where he continued to be an active community member. He used his Ukrainian experience in student organizations, local politics and small business to found the Vyshyvanka Association, which in six years grew from organizing the Vyshyvanka Day Festival and other related projects in Toronto, to initiating the All-Canadian Committee of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and working with provincial and federal politicians.
Project participation:
Wolodymyr became a part of Ukrainian cultural life at an early age, joining the СУМ “Говерла” dance ensemble in Derby when he was five years old. He uses his talent to promote Ukrainian culture around the world, performing in front of various audiences in Canada and Europe. He took part in the famous British dance show BBC”Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two”, where he taught local professionals to perform Ukrainian dances.
Wolodymyr also teaches dance to the younger generation of СУМ, conducts weekly rehearsals and organizes concerts. He is a talented dancer, financial auditor, pianist, and children’s rugby coach.
Participation in projects:
Yelyzaveta holds a Master’s degree in Historical Sciences, is a performer of Ukrainian folk songs and a participant in projects dedicated to Croatia’s European integration. She is an active member of the Ukrainian community in Zagreb and the Ukrainian Cultural and Educational Society “Кобзар”.
She works on burnout prevention for young employees. Within the framework of the European Solidarity Corps Program “You – the EU”, she is developing the “History of Solidarity” project, which aims to promote the establishment of solidarity through stories about the experiences of exceptional people.
Participation in projects:
Youssef studies Electrical Engineering in Beirut, but he chose Ukraine for his internship. He plays piano, speaks five languages freely, and actively develops the Ukrainian community in Lebanon. Youssef created a popular «Українська армія» Instagram page that had 12,500 subscribers when he was at school. He supports Ukrainian soldiers, spreads truthful news under the motto: “Fighting Russian propaganda since now!».
This talented young man also became a Champion in taekwondo and Brazilian jiu-jitsu several times. Youssef speaks Ukrainian, Arabic, French, and Russian and plays the guitar.
Eugene is one of the most active Ukrainians in the United Arab Emirates and is the driving force behind Ukraine’s Native School in Abu Dhabi. He works in the IT field, but does not limit his activities to technical work. Eugene organizes traditional Ukrainian holidays, nativity scenes, film screenings, creative workshops, exhibitions of Ukrainian artists, sporting events, mobilizes volunteers from the Ukrainian community in the UAE, and fosters a positive impression of Ukraine among the Emirati community.
Project Participation:
Народилась у Польщі в третьому поколінні переселенців в межах операції «Вісла». Ганнуся – активна пластунка і волонтерка, яка протягом багатьох років бере участь в культурних і наукових заходах, які популяризують українську культуру та мову в Польщі.
Заснувала Науковий гурток україністів в Любліні, в межах якого організовувала літературні вечори та театральні вистави, присвячені Голодомору.
Участь у проєктах:
Тарас переїхав до Іспанії в дитинстві, та майже одразу став активним учасником життя громади. Завдяки Тарасу і його однодумцям в Іспанії відновила свою діяльність Спілка Української Молоді.
У 2015 р. хлопця призначили координатором молодіжних ініціатив і зв’язків із громадськістю в Асоціації Українців регіону Мурсія та обрано представником Ради асоціацій іноземців в Регіоні Мурсія від України. За його інформаційної та адміністративної підтримки Мурсія стала містом-побратимом українського Тернополя.
Окрім культурної діяльності, виступає консультантом проєкту для старшокласників «Я обираю своє майбутнє».
Участь у проєктах:
Організація та проведення фестивалів:
First Lady of Ukraine (2005-2010)
Archbishop-Metropolitan at Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia
Head and Research Fellow of the Ukraine Forum of Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs
Regional Vice President,
Ukrainian World Congress
Founded 109 years ago, the organization currently has more than 14,000 members in 24 countries.
One of the largest organizations working with Ukrainian youth in the world established in 1925 in Kyiv.
National coordinating body of Ukrainian-Canadian students at different post-secondary institutions across Canada. It was formed in 1953 in Winnipeg and now is considered the largest union of Ukrainian students outside Ukraine
International coordinating body of Ukrainian communities in the diaspora. Established in 2013 from the youth board of the Ukrainian World Congress, which has existed since 1967.
