In a country torn by war, displacement, and a crumbling health system , Valeriia Rachynska made a choice to stay and save lives.
Since 2022, Rachynska has been the Director of Human Rights, Gender, and Community Development at 100% Life, Ukraine’s largest network of people living with HIV. In this role, she’s helped mobilize humanitarian aid for over 300,000 people across the country — focusing on the rights of those living with HIV, vulnerable communities, and survivors of conflict-related sexual violence.
But that’s not where her journey started.
It started when a man — newly diagnosed with HIV — who died waiting for a hospital transfer that never came. The facility he needed was just 60 kilometers (37.28 miles) away, but red tape, and systemic failure turned that short journey into a deadly three-month delay. Rachynska still carries the weight of that loss. It’s not failure she fears, she says, but the cost of inaction — the fear that without the right policies, another life could be lost.
That fear — and her lived experience as a person living with HIV — became her compass.
When the full-scale war in Ukraine started in 2022, everything came to a halt — airports, roads, borders and supply chains — leaving millions stranded. Rachynska and her team, with the support of international partners, launched a rapid response to ensure uninterrupted access to HIV services across Ukraine.
“Inaction is a luxury we can’t afford,” she says. “It’s not just about medicine. People need food, shelter, and community, especially when you’re already battling stigma.”
And that stigma is exactly what Rachynska is working relentlessly to dismantle. She has been an active voice advocating for the human rights of people living with HIV (PLHIV), leading several initiatives aimed at combating HIV-related stigma, safeguarding health access, and reforming discriminatory policies in Ukraine.
Global Citizen Prize Winner, Valeriia Rachynska leading a protest in Ukraine. Image: Supplied by 100% Life
In December 2020, for example, Valeriia played a key role in integrating Ukrainian religious leaders into the Global Partnership for Action to Eliminate All Forms of HIV-Related Stigma and Discrimination. She has also led efforts to reform discriminatory laws, including pushing to decriminalize HIV in Ukraine, arguing that the legislation drives people underground and worsens the HIV crisis in her country. Her sustained advocacy, alongside partners, led to a historic victory: the Ukrainian parliament voted to remove the draconian HIV criminalization article from the criminal code.
Her impact extends far beyond Ukraine’s borders.
On the global stage, Rachynska has served as the European NGO delegate to the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board, co-chaired the Global Network of People Living with HIV, and currently sits on The Communities Delegation to the Board of the Global Fund — a collective of people living with HIV, or affected by tuberculosis and malaria, who influence Global Fund-related policies worldwide.
Rachynska views these honors not as personal triumphs, but as spotlights on the causes she fights for. “The greatest priority should be human life. Not resources, not items, not power,” she says. “That’s what will make the world a better place.”
The Global Citizen Prize is an annual award that recognizes and celebrates the unsung activists who are positively impacting their communities and going above and beyond to tick things off the world’s most important to-do list: the United Nations’ Global Goals.