Shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, a pen pal program was set up between students in Ukraine and the United States.
Diana Makarenko is a 14-year-old girl who lives in Okhtyrka, which is near the Russian border in northeastern Ukraine. Her town was heavily bombed in the first several weeks of the war. Most of her classmates study online now, but she and a handful of her peers opt to attend school in person. They have to go into a bomb shelter every time the air sirens go off, which sometimes happens several times a day.
Minati Divakar is a 14-year-old girl who lives in the quiet suburb of Oakton, Virginia, a suburb outside the U.S. capital of Washington. She attends a top school and spends most of her free time studying in hopes of getting into a good college.
For the past six months, the girls have shared their lives over email and WhatsApp messages and through audio recordings.
“I wanted to find friends abroad,” Diana said. “To somehow communicate and learn the point of view of a person who learned about the war from the media, from the news, from the internet, and who did not personally experience it.”
For Minati, being a pen pal has been an eye-opening experience.
“I never expected to connect so deeply with someone who lives on the other side of the world, much less a war-torn country,” she said. “Like, who I am is not so different from who she is … despite her life 100% being much, much harder than mine could ever be.”
