A. Jolie in Kharkiv

As children in Ukraine return to school amid increased attacks on civilians and infrastructure, I visited some of the teachers, coaches, and neighbors who keep them learning safely. 

Kharkiv sits close to the Muscovite border and is hit almost daily, so classrooms have been built inside metro stations. Other schools are fully underground, where young children learn to read three stories deep. 

I met a determined group of young athletes at Caramel Studio led by Tetyana Yermashkevych, practicing through air raid alerts in an underground training room in Northern Saltivka — one of the hardest-hit parts of the city. At Aza Nizi Maza, an art studio founded by artist Mykola Kolomiets, I saw children with learning disabilities create incredible art freely. The studio moved underground in 2022 to shelter from the bombing. 

In the Carpathian Mountains, @gen.ukrainian runs Gen.Camp Family to help reconnect men who have spent years in captivity to their loved ones . We sat with the women who have raised their children alone while campaigning for their husbands’ release. Some have waited four years. Knox was honored to lead a Muay Thai class with the children there. We also paid our respects to the family of Oleksii Yukov, who founded @_platsdarm_ and spent most of his life recovering, identifying, and returning the bodies of fallen soldiers from both sides of the conflict to their families. He was killed doing that work on the front line in August. 

These local organizations, with limited resources, have found ways to keep going under impossible circumstances.

Please follow their work: @gen.ukrainian, @caramel_studio_kh, @aza_nizi_maza, @_platsdarm_