People Making a Difference in the World: Natalia Etten CEO, Teach for Ukraine

People Making a Difference in the World: Natalia Etten

CEO, Teach for Ukraine | HueLife Alumna

The classroom was pitch dark. A missile strike had knocked out power across the region, and the winter cold seeped through the walls. Instead of sending her students home, a Teach for Ukraine Fellow pulled out her phone, turned on the flashlight, slipped it under a bottle of water, and set it on the desk. The makeshift lamp spread a soft glow across the room. Shivering in their coats, the children leaned closer to their notebooks, determined to keep learning.

Scenes like this fuel Natalia Etten’s work every day. As CEO of Teach for Ukraine, she leads an organization that places young leaders into underserved schools in rural communities, ensuring children continue to learn despite war’s disruption. Teach for Ukraine is part of a global network of independent organizations — including Teach for America — united by shared values and principles. The war has prompted the organization to take on additional challenges, including combating learning losses through teacher training, research, and community support.

Natalia’s own path to this mission was shaped by a choice few would make. She had built a career at a premier foreign policy think tank in Washington, D.C., but three years into Russia’s assault on her homeland, she walked away from security and comfort. Packing two suitcases, she returned to Kyiv, trading conference rooms for bomb shelters and missile alerts. She chose to lead from the ground, convinced that education was as critical to Ukraine’s survival as military defense.

“Every nation is shaped in classrooms,” Natalia says. “Education touches us all. If we could invest in education like the world’s peace depends on it — maybe we’d finally reach the peace we deserve.”

Her conviction is echoed in the commitment of the teachers she supports. Angelina, a young English teacher, moved to a village where the sound of shelling rattles the school windows, but she continues teaching. Andriy, a physics teacher, tutors students by candlelight during blackouts so they don’t fall behind. Olena, a soldier in Ukraine’s Armed Forces, volunteers to teach math from the trenches, saying, “This is how I defend Ukraine — by giving children a future worth fighting for.”

For Natalia, these stories embody courage. They remind her that while soldiers defend Ukraine on the battlefield, teachers defend it in the classroom.

Her ability to lead in such extraordinary times draws on training she received in Minnesota during her involvement with HueLife and the YouLEAD program. During her Fulbright Scholarship at the University of Minnesota, she learned ToP Facilitation tools that provided practical frameworks to lead teams through uncertainty, foster dialogue, and mobilize communities for action.

Under her leadership, Teach for Ukraine has reached thousands of children who might otherwise have been left behind. But with each new blackout, displacement, and missile strike, the need only grows. Still, Natalia insists that every child bending over a textbook in a freezing classroom represents a seed of renewal, and every teacher who perseveres offers proof that education is both resistance and rebirth. Because in Ukraine today, classrooms are not just places of learning — they are places where the future itself is being defended.