Vladyslava Vertogradska

Vladyslava Vertogradska studies Contemporary Communication at LCC International University in Lithuania. At the age of 13, she was forced to leave her hometown in Donetsk, Ukraine, due to the Russian occupation. After participating in numerous extra-curricular educational schools and events such as UNESCO’s MOST Winter School, Democracy Reporting International, EU Study Days, UNICEF’s fact-checking challenge, and the 17th International Media Law School, Vladyslava wanted to share her learnings with her peers and create a place where young people could learn about, and take part in, youth opportunities.

This led to her creating Vlada’s Talk Show, a project that combines engaging visuals, a talk show format, and education materials together in one holistic approach. It has run for two seasons so far, with one of the episodes featuring the Global Student Prize with Aya Yousef as a speaker. By inviting different guests and producing varied episodes, she aims to raise awareness among young people about various educational and work opportunities and inspire them to take part. The project has attracted views from over 2,000 users and consists of over 20 episodes.

Vladyslava is also extremely active at her university in a number of leadership positions. She is a Marketing Director at the Student Council and a Core Organizer of Communications, Editorial, and Marketing for TEDxLCC. As a representative of the Student Council, she created visuals and promoted on-campus events for the student body, and helps in organizational and administrative matters.

She is a Campus Director for the international leadership development program, Millennium Fellowship, on campus and is a judge for the International Competition of Sustainable Development Ideas. Prior to being selected as one of the 2,000 Millennium Fellows from out of over 25,000 applicants, she gathered active students from her campus to participate in the program together and work on projects that would bring social impact.

As a Millennium Fellow, she co-hosted the Graduation Ceremony of the fellowship for an audience of over 1,800 people and moderated a Global Webinar with Samantak Bhadra on “Giving meaning to our work”. During her Millennium Fellowship she also collaborated with another Fellow from Bangladesh to host a season of a podcast which educates students about inspiring social impact stories from their peers, world leaders, and other Fellows.

Outside of the campus community, Vladyslava took part in UNICEF’s Youth Mediathon and worked with an international team of young people on raising awareness about the importance of mental health through art together with mentors from UNICEF.

Vladyslava is also a Young European Ambassador in Ukraine for EU NEIGHBOURS East. As part of the project, she participates in international events, organizes local events for Ukrainians, and writes articles on the topics of current interest that relate to the European Union.

Vladyslava also participated in the 67th International Student Conference in Japan, where she collaborated with international students on a research topic examining youth participation in politics. She then helped write a policy proposal that was submitted to the Ministry of Education in Japan. If she won the Global Student Prize she would use the funds to further her higher education tuition and create educational projects for Ukrainian children who are IDPs and refugees.