On March 30th, in the amphitheater at the NYU Abu Dhabi campus, students, faculty and staff gathered in solidarity with Ukraine — to honor the lives lost and to listen to the stories of Ukrainian members of the NYUAD community.

The stage was lit in Ukrainian flag colors, with a Ukrainian flag flying in the wind nearby while songs in Ukrainian played in the background. The space was filled with people who came to show their support; attendees lit candles and pinned blue-yellow ribbons and sunflowers to their shirts, representing the colors of the Ukrainian flag while the flowers sent an anti-war message. A Class of 2022 student who led the event opened with a minute of silence.

Ukrainian students took to the stage and shared deeply personal stories about the struggles their friends and relatives faced since the outbreak of war, the emotional hardships they feel and their uncertainty for the safety of their loved ones. Their words painted the war and its heartbreaking dilemmas, known to other students only from news articles and Instagram stories.

“I do not feel like a student anymore,” said a Ukrainian senior in her personal letter she had read out., “... I feel useless not knowing how to hold up a rifle.”

A first-year student spoke about Ukrainian children, who are now learning how to treat wounds instead of learning how to read and write. Later, he shared words his mom had said to him on a phone call, “I’m happy you’re in Abu Dhabi because now I understand that at least one person from our family will stay alive.”

NYUAD Alumni from Ukraine had sent letters for current Ukrainian students to read out during the Vigil. Valeriya Golovina, Class of 2018 shared the story of Feb. 24, the first day of the Russian invasion on Ukraine. She described it as “the worst sunrise of [her] life,” and asked the community to keep reaching out to Ukrainians and shared gratitude to everyone who had messaged her.

Students from Ukraine provided context on previous Russian aggression towards Ukraine to foreign community members, including family stories from the period of the Great Famine in Soviet Ukraine in the 1930s when millions died of starvation. Yuliia Tymoshenko, Class of 2021, shared in her letter the story of her ancestors during the famine under Stalin’s rule, making pancakes from grass and walking 40 kilometers to get bread. Her speech highlighted the anticipation of Ukrainian people that the Russians are coming again, with absolutely senseless violence. She called on everyone to never stay silent in the face of injustice.

Emotions were often hard to control — both the people speaking on stage and the audience sitting in the amphitheater would shed tears from time to time. Kateryna Korobkova shared the poem “The Action in the Ghetto of Rohatyn” by Alexander Kimel, with a repeating powerful line: “No, I don’t want to remember, but how can I forget?”, concluding with the equally powerful verse: “No. I Have to Remember and Never Let You Forget.”

Alex Markova, Class of 2021, shared her personal choice between how much money she needs for herself and how much she can donate.

Yeva Stepanova, Class of 2025, came up to the stage in traditional Ukrainian clothing. Yeva comes from Kharkiv, a city 26 miles away from Russian borders. Her powerful message centered around the biggest mistake people make, including herself in the past. As Stepanova warned, “do not allow yourself to think that something that happens to other people, will never happen to you.” She shared how she had never thought she would receive the lowest grade — it happened to other people who did not study, not her. And then she did, in her algebra class. She thought she would never get robbed since she was always cautious and attentive with her belongings, yet someone managed to steal her wallet in the metro. And it seemed impossible that war would break out in her home country … Stepanova said later, “Everything I said that day was a combination of thoughts that would come to my mind every day since the war began. I’ve been reflecting on my childhood a lot because this is when I learned about war and I was told by my parents that there is no way that something like WW2 will ever happen again.”

Ukrainians encouraged other members of the community to raise awareness, write about Ukrainian history, and reach out to Ukrainian friends. As Stepanova shared, “As the mental health of every Ukrainian student stabilized a little bit, we started to talk about organizing [a] vigil because I personally wanted my story to be heard. I wanted [the] people of NYUAD to understand everything that happens ‘behind the scenes’ of being a person who is affected by war.”

In the end, there was a space left for anyone willing to share their personal story. A Class of 2022 student went onstage revealing her spring break destination — Ukraine, as a helper at the Ukrainian-Polish border. She shared heartbreaking but heroic stories of her extremely talented and ambitious friends who decided to give up their lives and go to the frontline.

After the event, Amina Rotari, Class of 2025 shared, “It was very difficult to hear stories from people that you know, and that you see every day. Not just some abstract stories but stories of their lives, what they had to experience, what they went through and what their families [are] still going through back there, and what they [are] experiencing even right now emotionally ... I am really hopeful that it [the Vigil] helped our Ukrainian community to feel supported and feel that there are people here who are ready to listen who are ready to … you know … you can’t really understand how they’re feeling but who are ready to try and take from just a little bit of their pain.”

Rotari added that the plan to organize a vigil had been in the minds of many students since the first day of the invasion, “A bunch of students and some people from Student Affairs and SLICE and REACH ... met right after the war started and we’ve been meeting almost weekly to talk about how can we show support to the Ukrainian community and we had the thought of you know holding a vigil for a very long time.”

Toby Le, Class of 2022 and one of the co-organizers of the Vigil, said, “I was very moved and I just personally hope that they felt that the space was appropriate and welcoming and what they needed.”

Serhii Durytskyi, Class of 2025, commented on the event from a Ukrainian perspective, “I am happy we had this vigil because we wanted to be heard, and be understood, to have an opportunity to speak up.” Stepanova also highlighted the feeling of community she felt. “At the end of the event, a lot of people came to me and told me that my speech touched them deeply and they were crying while listening to me. I received a lot of hugs and support,” Stepanova said.

The vigil brought together people of different countries to honor, listen and share the tragedy of a war that is physically far away yet omnipresent in the life of every Ukrainian on campus, those from neighboring countries who are indirectly impacted and all those who care. “I feel like it’s wrong to say that some stories resonated with me more than others because they were all impactful and just beyond sad but they also showed so much strength and resilience,” Rotari concluded.