Plainsboro Township resident Advik Vermani was in search of volunteering opportunities when he began his time at High School South.
Vermani, the son of two IT professionals who moved from India to the United States two decades ago, grew up in central New Jersey and has lived in Plainsboro for the past 12 years.
Vermani says he cares deeply about making a difference in his community and wanted to do so in a more non-traditional way. That’s how he found and got involved with ENGin, a Ukrainian non-profit organization dedicated to facilitating English language education for Ukrainian students. It does so by connecting English-speaking volunteers with Ukrainian language learners abroad for weekly online sessions.
EngIN was founded in March 2020 and its mission expanded in reach and importance after the onset of the Russo-Ukrainian war in February 2022. The conflict further exacerbated the shortcomings of Ukraine’s overburdened education system.
Hoping to make a positive impact, Vermani began volunteering his time to teach virtual English language lessons to Ukrainian students at the beginning of his sophomore year in the fall of 2022.
Vermani, who is now a senior at South, spent the past 18 months creating resources and leading initiatives to support Ukrainians.
“I really care about the Ukrainian community, and I just felt a lot of empathy for them when I heard about what was happening over there,” Vermani says. “The main reason I started volunteering was because I wanted to make a difference in the lives of Ukrainian youth, but also because ENGin is a great organization.”
ENGin currently has more than 24,000 volunteers, according to its website (enginprogram.org). But even still, the need for volunteers persists, according to Vermani.
“There’s so many Ukrainian youth that need support that there’s always a backlog waiting list,” Vermani says.
When he joined ENGin, it had around 8,000 members. He says he remembers the staff was overwhelmed with the huge numbers of students and volunteers in need of assistance and weren’t always able to respond to questions right away. Moreover, ENGin was still in the process of developing instructional resources to support newer volunteers.
“Being a new volunteer can be a little bit intimidating for many high schoolers,” Vermani says. “It’s not super difficult and you’re just teaching English, but the turn-off aspect is the doubt and confusion of how to teach the Ukrainian students.”
Determined to bring the great volunteering opportunities offered by ENGin to the attention of his fellow high schoolers, Vermani founded his own ENGin chapter club—Unite for Ukraine.
Though Vermani originally intended to establish Unite for Ukraine as a school club, he decided to leave it open in order to create a more diverse and inclusive community with volunteers from all parts of New Jersey.
“That ended up working out for the better in the end for me, because now I’m not confined to one school,” Vermani says.
In the summer of 2023, Unite for Ukraine was officially founded as a chapter club of ENGin.
Although Unite for Ukraine had a slow start in terms of membership, it quickly grew to its current size once it gained momentum. The chapter club currently has around 65 active members who come from High School South, neighboring high schools and some northern New Jersey high schools.
Unite for Ukraine helps EngIN volunteers learn how to mentor their Ukrainian “buddies,” while also supporting EngIN through fundraisers and outreach initiatives. It also serves as a supportive community where volunteers can ask questions, discuss ideas, and share meaningful experiences.
Vermani serves as president of the chapter club and is an EngIN ambassador. In the latter role, he is in charge of recruiting members, increasing media and online presence, promoting cultural awareness, and providing support to new volunteers.
For his chapter club, the president created resources for members. These include presentations on effective learning and speaking techniques, how to give feedback to students and good activities to do in sessions with students, as well as lesson plans that volunteers could use.
“To support inexperienced volunteers, I like to discuss ideas and lesson plans with them so that they can have effective sessions,” Vermani says. “It’s a support community more or less. But beyond that, it’s to expand outreach for ENGin and Ukraine.”
Vermani says he plans to stay involved with Unite for Ukraine after he graduates from high school in May 2025, just not as president, as he believes he could expand the club’s reach at his future university.
“I just wanted to found a club and make a difference from homegrown hard work,” Vermani says. “That’s why I don’t intend on leaving or completely just forgetting about it once I graduate.”
Because Unite for Ukraine is still in its early stages, Vermani has been working without an established leadership team, with only Amy Zheng, a senior at High School North, as vice president.
For that reason, there are still many leadership positions open to any high school students who are passionate about making a difference and volunteering with ENGin.
Unite for Ukraine is not the only initiative that ENGin inspired Vermani to found. He also created the web app Harmonize, which allows users to input Ukrainian songs and receive recommendations for similar English songs.
One of Vermani’s Ukrainian friends from EngIN told him that he really likes to listen to English music and is interested in Western music culture. However, he felt isolated from it, as he didn’t know where to find songs that matched his taste, nor did he always understand the lyrics.
Vermani wanted to help Ukranians abroad to be able to discover English music that they can enjoy, so he combined his knowledge of music theory and programming skills to create the web app.
Both Harmonize and Unite for Ukraine are projected to continue improving as Vermani makes efforts to advance them in ways that benefit the people they serve.
“I definitely want to expand Unite for Ukraine. My plans are mainly just to put more effort into recruiting and expanding the network,” Vermani says. “Hopefully we can get above 100 members at some point.”
He adds that high school students can find meaning by supporting impactful initiatives through ENGin and Unite for Ukraine, and they can do so with a flexible schedule, without having to leave the comfort of their home.
Vermani and Unite for Ukraine also have an active fundraising campaign running on GoFundMe (gofund.me/3eb9b2ab), and they hope to raise at least $1,000 to support ENGin’s mission and expand its reach.
Any contributions will go towards providing resources, training volunteers, and ensuring the program can continue to offer its services for free. Every donation, no matter how big or small, makes a huge difference, Vermani says.
Any high school students or parents interested in contacting Vermani about the volunteering opportunities offered by Unite for Ukraine through ENGin can contact him at uniteforukrainenj@gmail.com or the club Instagram (@uniteforukrainenj).
“I love volunteering with ENGin and running this club. It’s a win-win for everyone and you make such a big difference,” Vermani says.
WW-P High School South senior Advik Vermani, pictured above in Banff, Canada, is an ambassador for ENGin, a non-profit organization dedicated to facilitating English language education for Ukrainian students,
