Education as Resistance: Ukraine’s Underground Schools

What happens when a country’s classrooms become a battleground?

2026 McNulty Prize Winner Anna Novosad, co-founder of SavEd, is rebuilding what war tries to destroy: community, connection, and learning. With co-founder Anna Putsova, she’s created 160 underground learning centers across Ukraine’s frontline regions, giving children isolated by five years of war a place to study, play, and belong again. Their work is a powerful model for sustaining education and identity in conflict zones around the world.