Sofia Breus
In March 2023, 12-year-old Sofia Breus’s father Mykola was killed in combat, defending Ukraine. The loss devastated her family, but especially Sofia, who shared a special connection with him and received the news first, alone at home. Already an anxious, sensitive introvert and now deep in grief, she retreated even further into herself.
But when her older sister Olya convinced Sofia to apply for a month of summer education programmes in the UK, hosted by non-profit Children of Heroes and BSHU, Sofia began a slow transformation that would not only change her life in the present but inspire a confident, global view of her future, too.
On 31 December 2022, all four members of the Breus family – 12-year-old Sofia, her sister Olya, 22, their mother Svitlana and father Mykola – gathered to ring in 2023. It was one of the last times Sofia would see her father.
When the Russo-Ukrainian War began, in February 2014, with the movement of Russian forces into Crimea, Sofia’s father volunteered for, and was enrolled in, the Anti-Terrorist Operations (ATO) that sought to resist Russian occupation. Sofia was just three years old. Mykola would spend the next nine years – most of Sofia’s conscious life – in and out of military service, enrolling in the ranks of Kyiv’s Territorial Defence Forces in 2022 and rising to the rank of group commander after helping to liberate Kyiv in April. Over the next year, his family moved with him as he was transferred around the country.
On 3 March 2023, just months after the New Year’s celebrations with his family, Mykola died following injuries sustained in combat.
His death was not a total shock, says Sofia’s sister Olya – he often said that he would die in combat – but the delivery of the news was: Sofia, who was home alone, received the news directly from soldiers who arrived at their door. “I was really upset,” Olya says, “that they told a little child without any preparation – just, ‘Your father is dead.’”
Grieving a family loss
The news was devastating for the whole family, and though they tried to cope with it together, Olya says it hit Sofia hardest. Not only was she young, but she shared a special relationship with her father. “Sofia was a daddy’s girl, his sweet little girl. She loved him so much.”
Sofia was always a sensitive child – “always a little bit shy, and easy to cry” – who struggled to meet new people and make new friends, but after her father’s death, things worsened. At home, Olya took closer care of her little sister, assuming the role of “a second mother figure, or even a replacement of our father”, but Sofia was retreating from other people in her life. “At school, her teachers didn’t know how to talk to her or what they should do.”
Sofia was grieving.
An opportunity abroad
For the last two years, BHSU has teamed up with Children of Heroes, a grassroots non-profit in Ukraine helping children who have lost one or both parents in the war, to offer eight children a reprieve from wartime to study at educational summer programmes in the UK.
Sofia, still traumatised and shy, was anxious about the idea of studying abroad – and her mother about sending her – but with some encouragement and a little bit of help from Olya with the application, she summoned the nerve to apply to Summer Schools.
“It is a great way to expand your world, learn more and see other places”, says Olya. “You don’t get that opportunity that often. So I said to Sofia, ‘Let’s do this. You have a chance.’”
An anxious start at school
Soon enough, Sofia was on her way to Etherton Education’s Wellington School, in Somerset, to be immersed in the English language for a month as she studied maths, biology, history, drama, art and more.
The transition was difficult. On her first-ever trip abroad, Sofia suffered a minor breakdown at the border as the guards were inspecting her things and interrogating her, and she was overwhelmed at first by the programme. She missed her family and struggled to understand not just some of the lessons but the accents of her teachers, too.
Sofia’s group supervisor, who travelled with the eight students from Ukraine to the UK, saw this firsthand: “The first days in school,” she says, “Sofia was seen wearing headphones and holding a book all the time.”
Sofia’s transformation
If you blinked, you might have missed it: Sofia blossomed seemingly overnight.
“Three or four days later – maybe even less”, says Olya, “she was excited about all the things going on at school.” In the evenings, Sofia was swept up by social events, laughing and taking selfies with new friends from Ukraine, France, Korea, Japan and China. She took part in fashion shows and TikTok dances. “There was no time to cry”, smiles Olya.
The girl Sofia’s mother described as “a natural talent for foreign languages [who] adores Harry Potter, likes to play computer games, is fond of anime” and loves to sing, was reemerging.
Sofia was a changed student, too. Never a fan of science before, Sofia warmed to the hands-on lessons in chemistry and biology. She received praise from her maths teacher and her drama teacher for excelling.
A new girl with a new future
Sofia returned to Kyiv a new girl.
Despite being surrounded by daily air sirens again, under attack and living with the constant stress of war, Sofia has newfound assurance and hope for the future. Immediately upon her return, she asked to be transferred to a different school in Ukraine, which offered lessons more like those she benefitted from in the UK. She wants to continue learning in England. “For the first time,” her group leader says, “Sofia has goals in life for herself.”
Olya says Sofia became “more independent, more confident in herself”, and though the girls are still learning to live without their father, she says “he always thought that education is very important”, and that, were he alive to see Sofia’s educational journey, “he would be very proud.”
It’s perhaps most inspiring, though, to hear from Sofia herself: “Before I went to England, I was planning on getting a higher education in Ukraine. However, after I visited England, I realised that my goal has changed. I want to study in England, and with that experience help Ukraine to develop. I am very grateful to the sponsors for the opportunity to visit England”.