COLUMBIA, S.C. — As war rages on between Russia and Ukraine, Ukrainian citizens struggle to access important resources like education. One Midlands student is working to help Ukrainian schoolchildren access in-person school for the first time in years.
Alaina Cutler is a student at Hammond in Columbia.
Cutler is using her Bat Mitzvah, a celebration and tradition for Jewish children entering adulthood, to help a community she’s never met.
“During COVID, it took a huge toll on a lot of people’s mental health,” Cutler said. “And it must be a lot worse for kids who have to worry about being bombed.”
Cutler is raising money for 95 kids at a school in Ukraine, who haven’t gone to school in person for years. They’re just sixteen miles from an active war zone, and the area is so dangerous that volunteers can’t currently enter.
According to the Ukrainian Minister of Education and Science, over 7.5 million kids in Ukraine are facing similar situations, with over 300 schools destroyed so far.
“The children in Ukraine can identify what missile is which missile,” said Ana Sazonov.” And if the missiles are far away, close, if it's ours, do they have to run to shelter, if it's a drone."
Cutler decided she wanted to help and her rabbi at Tree of Life Congregation connected her with Ana Sazonov, a Ukraine native and former Columbia resident doing humanitarian work on the ground.
“And she said I want to help people and kids my age,” Sazonov said. “Because it doesn't make sense that I have the ability and the privilege to sit in a in a great classroom with AC and all the facilities and there's kids in other places around the world that cannot have this, cannot have this opportunity to have a normal life.”
With Sazonov’s help, Cutler has set up a fundraiser to help buy a furnished bomb shelter, as well as a tent and projector for summer classes.
So far, she’s raised more than $88,000.
“That meant a lot to me because I felt like I was part of something bigger than myself,” Cutler said. “I was connected to these people who were halfway across the world.”
Cutler hopes to raise $10,000 to send to the school.
"That would feel amazing because I knew that I was able to make such a difference in these people's lives," Cutler said. "They've been isolated, not been able to see their friends for four years, and then they're able to do it because of something that I helped do.”
Sazonov says she hopes Cutler can go to Ukraine and meet the community she’s working to help, once it’s safer to travel there.