At the age of 15, Elina Mariutsa bought a one-way ticket from Moscow and never looked back, leaving behind her home, her parents and her Yorkshire terrier Paris.
It was 2013 and Greece was collapsing under the pressure of the refugee crisis. Mariutsa couldn't bear to continue to sit and watch it unfold on television. He spent six months in Halkidiki, a processing area for refugees and immigrants, volunteering for various non-profit organizations.
There, she says she found herself disillusioned with the attitude of some government officials in dealing with the crisis, so she began planning her next move. But as he wanted to continue helping where he could, returning to Moscow was not an option.
“I was living my good life in Moscow and enjoying it and being comfortable,” he says. “It's not like I was born into a very rich family or anything like that, nothing like that. But I was safe and I was happy and I didn't feel it.”
With the support of her parents, Mariutsa spent the next three and a half years after Greece at an American school in the Czech Republic. Knowing neither English nor Czech, for the first two months she pretended to be deaf whenever she was spoken to. Three years later, when she moved to Boston to study international affairs and political science at Northeastern, she was fluent in both languages and has since added four more languages to her repertoire, including German, Polish and French, in addition to her mother tongue. languages, Russian and Ukrainian.
From Moscow to Boston, over the course of six years, Mariutsa found a home in many different cities in between. But while the people in each of these places welcomed her, she found that the governments were generally hostile to each other. It's that discord that ultimately fueled her passion for diplomacy, she says.
“I call home many places that don't like each other, that don't accept each other and each other's differences and don't find common ground,” she says. “My biggest hope is to find that common ground. Everything I do here in peacebuilding or foreign affairs or politics is to see one day the places around the world that are dear to my heart sitting at a common negotiating table and having a political dialogue.”
It is this passion that drives everything Mariutsa does, and it seems that there is not a single moment in her time that she is not dedicated to addressing injustices. As a high school student in Russia, she helped political prisoners who believed they were falsely accused defend themselves in court. Now a student at Northeastern, she spends much of her time developing solutions for disaster-stricken areas and supporting efforts to prevent and end gun violence.
Last year, he helped organize it March for our lives in Boston—which turned out to be the second-largest student-led demonstration in the nation after Washington, D.C.—and is still involved as the group's press secretary. With the anti-gun violence group, he has also helped organize it 50 Miles More March at Massachusetts-based gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson and helped draft and lobby for gun violence bills in Massachusetts.
This summer, Mariutsa is studying global governance and disarmament at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, for a month Dialogue of Cultures program led by the professor of political science and international affairs Denise Garcia.
The trip to Geneva comes right after completing a co-op at Global Resilience Institute at Northeastern, where she worked as a research assistant focusing on the lingering effects of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
“The mayor of New Orleans hired GRI to figure out how to strengthen these communities, and especially not just infrastructure, but how to build social capital. how to make sure people feel they belong there and want to restore it,” he says.
Mariutsa was selected to participate in an ambassador program offered by Institute of Economics and Peacean organization based in Australia that produces a Global Peace Index each year which ranks countries according to their level of peace. The program consists of researchers, legislators, educators, and professionals from around the world who are dedicated to solving injustices in nonviolent ways. Mariutsa says this opportunity will allow her to connect with others in the field and develop research projects and conferences.
The program, which began in June, will require her to attend conferences throughout the year and undertake a major research project, which she plans to present at Northeastern in October. For her work, Mariutsa says she will focus on the economic impact of common causes of death, including coronary heart disease, gun violence and suicide, compared to less likely terror- and disaster-related deaths. , but they get much more attention from the media.
“We fear these massive disasters, but we still have gun violence happening in our neighborhoods,” he says. “This is something that is crippling the economy and the people affected cannot participate in the economy, cannot find a job or their family has to spend money on medical expenses. But we don't think about those things and it hurts us a lot more in the long run.”
Mariutsa has also worked as a top spokesperson and mentor for Northeastern's Council on International Relations. As a member of the Northeast Chapter of the United Nations Association, he helped organize the first United Nations Day at the university, as well as the first Earth Day. He was recently appointed president of the organization.
In the fall, she will return to work in the office of Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey—where she completed her first fellowship—to conduct research and advise the office on gun violence prevention policy.
As she continues her pursuit of degrees in international affairs and political science, she paused to reflect on the opportunities she created for herself and those she discovered through Northeastern.
“As an international student there is literally not one place in this country where you can go to school and do an internship because you're not allowed to work off campus,” he says. “This whole experience is because of the co-op and Northeastern's work-out programs. I'm really lucky.”
For media inquiries, Picontact lease media@northeastern.edu.
