Driving transformative education initiatives to support children's learning and well-being during the war to strengthen Ukraine’s human capital for post-war rebuilding.

Oksana Matiiash is the chief executive officer of Teach For Ukraine, a nonprofit organization that aims to ensure every child in Ukraine has access to quality education. As CEO, Oksana has developed partnerships with 30 schools serving 10,000 children in five regions in Ukraine. Since 2020, Oksana has worked with technology companies and foundations to raise over $2,500,000 and expand Teach For Ukraine’s teacher base tenfold. Instead of suspending operations at the start of the war, Oksana led the organization to launch urgent emergency responses. Partnering with UNICEF, Save the Children, and the World Bank, Teach For Ukraine provided emergency psycho-social and learning support to 25,000 children and 90,000 teachers. Still based in Kyiv, Oksana and her team provide tutoring, summer camps, and leadership programs to ensure that children continue to receive educational support during the war. Oksana hopes to use the Scholars program to develop her leadership abilities and scale her work to shape and rebuild Ukraine’s educational system after the war. 

Oksana was featured in the 2022 Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list in the category of Social Impact and is a recipient of the Peres Heritage Award by the European House Ambrosetti. She holds a master’s of public policy from the University of Oxford as the Weidenfeld-Hoffmann Scholar and a master’s in international law from the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.

Biography current as of 2023-2024 program year