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Anna Safronova

Russia

Mission: providing a positive social environment and educational opportunities for inner-city orphans.

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

22

the number of cities her project has spread to.

1000

orphans took part in the educational activities initiated by the MDC volunteers

8

is the number of timezones Russia has.

Protect your courage

Originally from Ufa, a city within the Ural Mountains in Russia, Anna lived in Moscow for the last 5 years and graduated from Lomonosov Moscow State University in 2015 with a B.A. cum laude in History and International Relations.

As a high school student, she spent an exchange year in the United States where donated much of her time to community service. While volunteering as a teacher assistant at a local art gallery she met an orphaned elementary school student who lived in a foster home but led a completely normal life, wasn’t isolated from other kids and went to a regular school. The contrast between his life and those led by Russian orphans seemed so striking that inspired Anna to do something about it back home. Upon her return to Russia Anna started an independent volunteer project called Be Dragons aimed at providing mentorship support and educational opportunities for inner-city orphans.

At Watson Anna worked on developing a sustainable model for her organization that would help to scale its impact and create long-term changes in kids’ lives.