Running an international program 25 km from the front line

Every day during the 10-day blackout this spring, Sofiia Krasnikova put an eight-kilogram laptop in her backpack and rode her bike 5 km to the neighboring village, to a "Point of Invincibility". She worked there all day. "I live in Zolochiv, 25 km from the front line," she says. She keeps going, she says, because "behind my work there is a team of people from different countries who rely on me".

That team is Rebright the Sight!, the social startup she founded with Yasen: a youth-led international educational program run by seven young people from around the world. Its design concept is "shedding light on the unspoken." The workshops help young people "uncover unconscious biases in unexpected places", such as Urban Planning and "how cities are systematically designed for the 'average man'". Cultural evenings run alongside, built on personal stories.

“I cannot afford to disappear even in such conditions”

The first cohort drew 238 applications from 10 countries, and 40 participants were chosen. The team hosted 12 educational workshops and 10 cultural exchange evenings. "We plan to build LMS-platform, reach 150+ alumni," she says.

"As a child, I was quiet and modest," she says. When the war began her family moved from Kharkiv to a small village, where she says she was perceived as an outsider and closed herself off. "By accepting myself and others I’ve found connections I could never have dreamed of," she says.

Since she was 14 she has volunteered as a graphic designer for the charitable foundation Our Victory, which supports residents of a nursing home, people with disabilities and IDP children, where she designed the cover and layout of a poetry collection by one of the foundation's residents. "That moment showed me how design can support people's dignity and visibility," she says.

Last summer, on a full scholarship, she took part in the UWC Short Course "(RE)Defining Equality". Then she hosted a Gender Inequality workshop in her hometown Kharkiv, "a city located 30 kilometers from the front line". "That was my first public speaking experience," she says. "But I knew we needed something bigger."

She was named laureate of Young Person of the Year Kharkiv 2026 and received an increased academic scholarship at V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University.

"I want to continue creating spaces where young people from different cultures can openly discuss the future we want to build together," she says.