Name: Daria Korzhavina
Age: 26
Education: Institute of Journalism of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv
Profession: co-founder of the non-profit Fight for Right
Did you know? Korzhavina has a three-year-old daughter, and takes Brazilian jiu-jitsu classes.
As a child, Daria Korzhavina was diagnosed with retinoblastoma, a rare form of eye cancer that has left her blind. After battling with the disease, she decided to become a journalist and an activist, to be able to fight discrimination against people with disabilities.
Korzhavina is now a co-founder of Fight for Right, a Kyiv-based non-profit that promotes inclusion, supporting people with disabilities and their rights for education and employment.
“I believe that I can change something, and I can do something, so why not,” Korzhavina says.
Korzhavina had dreamed of becoming a journalist from early childhood, and at school she published several stories in a magazine printed in Braille — the writing system for people with vision impairment. She earned a journalism degree from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv in 2016, and worked for a short time for Hromadske Radio in Kyiv.
Then in 2017, Korzhavina together with her friend Juliia Sachuk, 36, founded Fight for Right to help people with disabilities.
“Not that many people are willing to help others for free, as volunteers. This is disappointing, so I decided to become that one person who helps others,” Korzhavina says. “I understood that I really wanted to change something.”
Korzhavina started first aid courses for people with vision impairments, and together with Sachuk initiated a series of events called “Be Together,” where they teach people how to combat discrimination against people with disabilities, and where people with and without disabilities can communicate and spend time together.
With other activists, she raised money to purchase Ukraine’s first BrailleBox V5, a printer that can produce up to 900 pages in Braille per hour. In Ukraine, people with visual impairments often complain of the shortage of literature in Braille, according to Korzhavina.
Korzhavina also takes part in “See! Can! Help!”, a charity cycling marathon that aims to raise awareness of the problems that people with disabilities face.
She is also an active participant in Kyiv Pride and a member of the reformist political party Democratic Alliance, which she joined in 2016, hoping to help make Kyiv more welcoming for people with disabilities.
According to Korzhavina, it was during the EuroMaidan Revolution that ousted then-President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014 that she first thought she was strong enough to change the country.
“What I realized was that people should not wait for change, but act,” Korzhavina says.
“If you want to build a new country — do it!”
