My name is Viktoriia Udaltsova, from a small town near Kyiv, Ukraine. I came across the UNV Online Volunteering Service in 2021, during the lockdown that accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic. That is when my volunteering journey started in the United Nations system, and for me, there's been no turning back.
I started volunteering and interning throughout my bachelor's degree in international relations from the University of York. I volunteered with the Ukrainian Institute in London and TEDxLondon, among others. It was then that I found an interesting UNV online volunteer assignment with the Accelerator Lab of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Ukraine, which required a translator for five months.