By Helen Petrozzola
I didn’t know where the Peace Corps would send me — only that it would be somewhere I needed to be. That was the unspoken pact: trust the process, step into the unknown, and give everything you can to the people and place you meet. Ukraine became my home, and the people I met there became my family in every sense of the word.
In late summer 1998, Peace Corps Group 13 boarded a bus from Kyiv to Cherkasy for three months of training. We stumbled through new words and customs, all of us wondering where we’d land. When my assignment finally came, Mariupol, a port city on the Azov Sea.
A few weeks later, I boarded an overnight train to Mariupol, my day tripper backpack wedged in the compartment under the narrow bunk. I arrived on Den Oxi — the Day of “No” — when Greeks commemorate their refusal to surrender to fascism during the Great Patriotic War. Mariupol had the largest Greek diaspora outside of Greece, and the city was alive with parades, music, and pride.
At twenty-one, I was assigned to teach English, journalism, and international economics at the Mariupol Institute of Humanities. My students, aged 17 to 21, welcomed me warmly and spoke openly about their lives. They told me about everything — families, ambitions, favorite musicians, customs — and also about the more complex truths: the dangers of working at the steel factories, used needles in apartment entryways and on beaches, sex work at the port, and a rising tide of drug use.
Their hunger for real information about HIV struck a chord. Back in college, I’d done some work on HIV prevention, and those skills suddenly felt urgently relevant. I began researching peer education models and created our own program, Sound Mind, Sound Body. We piloted it with a small group of students who gave me frank feedback, and together we shaped it into something our community could own. The sessions became a space to discuss relationships, safer sex, and HIV prevention.
Press Coverage — Sound Mind, Sound Body Launch
Mariupol newspaper, November 1999
“The excitement of the participants was quite understandable: for the first time, they were going to discuss such vital problems of the contemporary society as HIV, sex, pregnancy, contraceptives, and STIs… they got answers to their questions and the expression ‘Sound Mind, Sound Body’ became the motto of the Institute.”
— Helen Kolodyazhna, 3rd year English student
Word spread. We adapted the program for secondary schools, trained peer facilitators, and traveled to nearby towns. UNAIDS in Kyiv noticed and sent posters, educational materials, and encouragement. The momentum was real, and the work belonged to the students as much as it did to me.
Around this time, my Peace Corps regional manager in Kyiv called to tell me that a woman named Olya Panfilova in Kyiv had heard about my work and wanted to connect. On my next trip to Kyiv, I met Olya. She spoke about her desire to start a self-help group based on the Alcoholics Anonymous model for people fighting drug addiction.
We secured a Peace Corps/USAID Small Project Assistance grant of $150. Olya found a meeting space, created printed materials, and spread the word. She ran the group with remarkable quiet resolve for people to gather, share their experiences, and support one another.
After some time, I began working at UNAIDS in Kyiv. Olya was now leading advocacy at the All-Ukrainian Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS. Our work was the same fight from different fronts, driven by the same urgency: to secure the right to care and treatment for people living with HIV.
Our friendship and work continued to grow. Together, Olya and I organized Mene ne baiduzhe — I Am Not Indifferent — an art exhibition at the UN House for World AIDS Day 2001. Works by people living with HIV filled the building with color, defiance, and hope. Artists sent their pieces by train from across Ukraine.
Invitation — Mene ne baiduzhe / I Am Not Indifferent
“United Nations Office in Ukraine, Peace Corps, and NGO ‘New Life’ cordially invite you to the opening of the art exhibition in honor of World AIDS Day 2001. Works by HIV positive artists and other Ukrainian artists showing their concern and support for a future without AIDS.”
After four years at the United Nations, I returned to the Peace Corps, but this time as staff. My first act as the Director of Programming and Training was to request PEPFAR funds for Ukraine. With interagency support, we launched a Peace Corps HIV Program that integrated training, created a Speakers’ Bureau of Ukrainians living with HIV, and funded volunteer-led prevention and anti-stigma projects. Olya was a constant partner, speaking at trainings and traveling to volunteer sites across the country, supporting Peace Corps Volunteers and their communities to raise awareness of HIV and reduce stigma of those affected by it.
And still there was more to do. Together, we co-authored twelve lives, telling the stories of twelve Ukrainians living with HIV.
Preface to Twelve Lives (2001) — excerpt
“The stigma that isolates many and prevents them from finding help is transmitted as easily as the virus itself — through misunderstanding, fear, and ignorance.”
Over time, Olya’s and Yana’s (her now-teenage daughter’s) activism grew. They founded Teenergizer, offering psychological support and advocating for young people’s rights in healthcare and education. They spoke at the UN and other global forums. They never stopped and continued to lead prevention and care efforts in Ukraine and beyond.
This summer, Olya and Yana traveled to the Netherlands, where Yana began law school. Two decades have passed since that bus ride to Cherkasy. Peace Corps didn’t just change my life — it bound my life to Olya’s and Yana’s and gave me the gift of seeing our bond endure across countries, decades, war, and the joy of another dream fulfilled.
Mini-Bios
Yana Panfilova – Ukrainian HIV activist, founder of Teenergizer, and a bachelor’s student in the program “Global Law” in the Netherlands.
Olya Panfilova is the Director of Teenergizer. She is a public health specialist with many years of experience in HIV prevention as well as support and care for people living with HIV in Ukraine and beyond. She has collaborated with numerous international initiatives to strengthen the rights of key populations and develop sustainable services.
Helen Petrozzola – NPCA Board Member, Chair of NPCA’s DEIA Committee, RPCV Ukraine 1998-2000, PC/Ukraine Director of Programming & Training 2005-2007, and longtime collaborator with Yana on HIV/AIDS advocacy initiatives in Ukraine and beyond.