Larisa comes from a Greek Catholic family in Donetsk. When war broke out in 2014, her family was unable to leave, as her grandparents refused to leave the city and her parents could not leave them on their own without help. For the sake of their only daughter Larisa’s future, her parents made the difficult decision to live apart – her father stayed with her elderly parents and her mother and daughter moved to a small Ukrainian border town where Larisa could go to school. Her mother had to work very hard to pay the rent for the flat and provide for their existence in a foreign town. But these sacrifices were not in vain: Larisa obtained a Ukrainian secondary school diploma with very high grades and in 2019 was able to enrol in the National University in Kiev, where she is studying foreign languages. Since then, she has been living alone and has to look after herself.
Her mother was forced to return to the occupied territories, where she has to take care of her parents. Larisa’s family is unable to help her daughter financially. And since the Coronavirus pandemic began, Larisa has not even been able to see her loved ones. Since January 2021 Ad Pacem has decided to support Larisa in her studies and provide her with a monthly scholarship of 80€. Funding for these monthly payments for the academic year from September 2021 to July 2022 was taken over by the Kiwanis Club of Luxembourg.
With the beginning of the Russian military invasion, Larysa moved first to Western Ukraine and then to Poland, where she found temporary shelter. Larysa continues her studies at a distance and has passed her exams. However, since the summer of 2022, Adpacem has stopped supporting this student financially, as she has left the territory of Ukraine.