Meet Our Summer Program Team Members
Hanna
My name is Hanna, I am a translator, an interpreter, and a future human rights defender.
As a Future Leaders Exchange program alumna and a Master’s student at Tallinn University, I believe in saying “Never say ‘I can’t’, always say ‘I’ll learn‘”.
I am excited to have this wonderful opportunity to become an intern at the UWC and inspired to work for Ukraine’s imminent victory and prosperity.
Rostyslav
My name is Rostyslav Pron and I’m very excited to be joining the Ukrainian World Congress team as Office Assistant.
I am currently enrolled in my last year for Compute Science in Toronto Metropolitan University. While my field of study is technology based, I always had a passion for work in the community, more precisely work in the Ukrainian community. I have arrived in Canada 11 years ago, and shortly after that I joined a Ukrainian National Youth Federation with which I have been since. There over the years I worked many different projects, becoming secretary, then a Vice President and finally becoming President, which I currently am. With UNYF I do many community-oriented initiatives targeted at bringing Ukrainian youth together and getting them closer to their roots. For example, we annually organize Pysanky making workshops before Easter, allowing many people to reconnect with this tradition and guiding them through it.
Besides volunteering I have previously also worked in the Ukrainian community. My job was at Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Center as an Archival Assistant. There I was digitizing and transcribing documents related to Holodomor. This experience brought me even closer to my Ukrainian heritage, detailly learning about the fates of my ancestors was a life changing experience.
This summer job at the Ukrainian World Congress is a next logical step in my path of helping Ukrainian community and I am delighted to have this amazing opportunity.
Nadiya
My name is Nadiya Pavlenko. I was born in Kyiv, Ukraine. Active participation in the Maidan Revolution helped me to develop a strong connection to my country and passion for politics. When I came to Canada as an immigrant in 2014, I started spending a lot of time with the Ukrainian community in Toronto, and developed a strong interest in the Ukrainian-Canadian community. I participated in different events, such as Ukrainian festivals, Ukrainians in Toronto meetings, Ukrainian museum openings, and other events that helped me to find a lot of connections in the community.
I graduated from a Behavioural Psychology program last year, where I was learning a lot about human behaviour in general, but had a strong interest in consumer behaviour and social media algorithms. Afterwards, I decided to take minor in Content Strategy, where I learned more about how people build connections with brands, services, and with each other on social media.
My plan was to work with small businesses to help them to rise through social media, and keep my interest in politics to myself. However, on February 24th, 2022, when the full scale invasion of Ukraine was started by the Russian Federation, I realized it is my duty to fight this war on the informational front.
So, this spring I started to volunteer at Ukrainian National Federation (UNF) centre as a media strategist for the Ukrainian archives project. The mission of this project is to connect Ukrainian archives that belong to UNF to today’s media world. This project promotes Ukrainian culture and plays an important role in Ukrainian community and history.
This summer I got accepted to the UWC as a Communications Specialist. This job unites all my interests from politics to social media strategy. Moreover, this is an opportunity for me to participate in the formation of the new perception of Ukraine on an international level. I feel honored to be a part of such an important organization as UWC this summer during these horrible and uncertain times for Ukraine, and I will try my best to apply all the skills I have to help this organization to help Ukraine.
