By Ben Hall
noteworthy
Nika Chelnokova has never enjoyed public speaking. Which is pretty ironic because last March, the rising Business School senior found herself leading a rally of several hundred demonstrators protesting the Russian invasion of Ukraine—her homeland, where her parents still live.
“It was an incredible moment in front of the crowd on the Boston Common,” Chelnokova says. “I felt that it wasn’t a speech, it was a conversation. And people started clapping and cheering. I felt the power of support.”
Chelnokova drew on what she learned in Social Change, a course that exposes students to contemporary social issues and movements, and examines the roles of governments, businesses, and nonprofit organizations in addressing those problems. “We were learning about social movements two weeks before everything happened,” she says.
Chelnokova’s activism continued over the summer. She traveled to Poland, where she worked with Ukrainian refugee children. She also spent time in Vienna where she was able to see relatives—and many people who had fled Ukraine.
Seeing the impact of the war on Ukraine’s citizens grieved her deeply. “People are so broken inside,” she says. It has also renewed her determination, she says, to “keep speaking out.”
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Photograph by Sean Sweeney
| Fall 2022
