The question “What do you want to be?” often sounds to a teenager less like a space for imagination and more like a source of immense pressure. Sixteen-year-olds are expected to make a decision that will impact the rest of their lives: choose a career path, successfully pass exams, and plan their future. However, making this choice consciously is nearly impossible when you simply do not know what options exist. To develop an interest in a specific field, one must first understand how it works. This is the purpose of career guidance programs, such as those provided by DHL and Teach For Ukraine, which enable teenagers from small communities to experience the operations of a major logistics company firsthand.
The DHL sorting facility never stops for a second. Conveyor belts hum, carrying packages one after another—in a minute, more items pass through here than some people will send in their entire lifetime. Somewhere, a scanner buzzes, reads a barcode, and instantly determines which van—and eventually which country—the box will reach.
Teenagers from small communities are stepping in here for the first time. Until today, “logistics” for many of them was just a word from a geography textbook or exclusively associated with the work of couriers. In reality, behind every on-time delivery lies a complex system of dozens of different specialties—from data analysts and engineers to operations managers. It is a massive industry with incredible career potential that teenagers often do not even suspect exists.
Education has traditionally been considered one of the best social elevators. Yet in real life, this elevator operates selectively—especially if you grow up in a village or a small town. Out on the street here, you rarely encounter people who win international grants, manage digital projects, complete internships at major corporations, or launch startups. A child who has never witnessed such real-world experiences within arm’s reach often fails to project these life scenarios onto themselves.
Thus, educational inequality between children from big cities and rural areas begins with how they envision their own futures. In their report Challenging Social Inequality Through Career Guidance 2024, researchers from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) refer to this as the “ambition gap”:
Even with equally high academic performance, children from disadvantaged backgrounds are significantly less likely to see themselves in top management or specialized professional roles in adulthood compared to their peers with higher socioeconomic status.
A vast layer of modern professions in management, analytics, technology, innovation, and logistics remains invisible to students from small communities simply due to a lack of role models and a supportive environment.
Data from the British foundation Education and Employers offers a strategic solution: if a child has at least four direct contacts with live businesses—whether through a company tour or a conversation with a mentor—the risk of becoming unemployed in adulthood drops by 86%. Furthermore, such experience translates into an 11% higher salary in the future.
Most importantly, such interactions provide a chance to break out of familiar scripts. Once a child allows themselves to dream of a broader future, these dreams transform into concrete goals that can be mapped out.
Building on a long-standing partnership between the international Teach For All network and DHL, Teach For Ukraine—as part of the broader Teach For All community—launched its own cooperation with the logistics company in 2021. Initially, the collaboration focused purely on supporting the leadership development program through Teach For Ukraine Fellowship, where university graduates and experienced professionals relocate to small communities to work as teachers for one or two years, serving as role models for children and agents of change in local areas.
In 2023, Teach For Ukraine and DHL Express expanded their partnership to implement the global GoTeach program. The GoTeach model is built upon the Career Readiness Education Framework developed by the international Teach For All network and adapted to the Ukrainian context. A key requirement of the framework is comprehensiveness: systematic interaction—consisting of at least three activities during the academic year—is a critical condition for career guidance to foster genuine life changes.
For the project team, this collaboration is much more than just a series of career orientation events, believes Inna Rakhmistruk, Head of Teach For Ukraine Fellowship. She explains that for students from small towns, this is a rare opportunity to step beyond theory. Through this partnership, they experience a modern work environment firsthand, understand labor market requirements, and ask questions directly to employees.
“We strive to help young people consciously choose their own path,” says Inna. “This partnership bridges school education with the real world of professions. It gives children the most important thing—the inspiration to believe in their own strengths and the courage to plan their future.”
The GoTeach program is built upon three consecutive stages, each designed to help students form a realistic understanding of the labor market and their own career prospects.
During the introduction stage, children visit DHL offices and logistics hubs. Teenagers gain a visual understanding of how a large enterprise operates. This helps connect theoretical knowledge from textbooks with real business processes and reveals the variety of specialties required to run a global logistics company.
The next step is immersion. Here, children get acquainted with the work of specific company departments. Teenagers observe internal processes and daily tasks of specialists live. This experience helps deepen their understanding of different professions’ specifics and explore the practical side of careers from the inside out.
The final stage focuses on practicing hands-on skills. Students master tools for a career start: they write resumes and cover letters, and practice interview skills. This involves soft skills development and preparation for the challenges young specialists face when searching for their first job.
The company views participation in GoTeach as an opportunity to invest in a generation growing up amidst war. Ruslana Ihnatieva, HR Director at DHL Express Ukraine, notes that every young person has the right to see their prospects—especially now, when Ukrainian teenagers must mature amid constant challenges.
Through the program, students become acquainted with the realities of the modern working world. However, as the company points out, the initiative is equally important for the employees themselves, uniting them around a shared purpose.
“We see special value in the live communication between youth and our team,” emphasizes Ruslana. “It helps children broaden their horizons and view the future not through the lens of limitations, but through possibilities. We are convinced that by supporting youth today, we are investing in the recovery of Ukraine tomorrow.”
By May 2026, over 150 students from small communities in the Kyiv, Odesa, Dnipro, and Ivano-Frankivsk regions had participated in the program. Across five program waves—each consisting of three stages—the children journeyed from an initial astonished look at the conveyor belts to writing their own resumes.
What do children take away from these meetings? Viktoriia, a 10th-grade student, admits that seeing how packages are delivered worldwide is “a completely different scale from what we see in our village.”
Her peer, Valeriia, remembers the financial literacy session best; she is already testing the advice by managing her own budget.
Meanwhile, Kamila completely changed her perception of professions overall:
“The company left a very good impression. I especially enjoyed listening to how business organization and development work from the inside. Now I understand that logistics is not just about delivery, but about complex processes requiring knowledge and skills.”
Kseniia Lentsova, a biology teacher at Petrivske Lyceum and an alumna of Teach For Ukraine Fellowship, shares how this experience looks from inside the classroom and how teenagers react:
“At school, you can talk a lot about professions, but it is completely different to see everything with your own eyes and talk to those who work there. 11th-graders are very diverse: some have already decided, some are still searching, and some are just happy to spend a day away from their desks (and that is completely fine too). However, for many, this is a great push to look at the labor market more broadly. Looking at the 11th grade, when children are already fully immersed in exam preparation and admissions, introducing such initiatives a bit earlier—in the 9th and 10th grades—is a good idea for the future.”
The collaboration between DHL and Teach For Ukraine combines a social mission with a strategic investment in Ukraine’s economy. The labor market faces an acute shortage of qualified personnel: according to EBA data, 74% of companies experience difficulties with this. Furthermore, Ministry of Economy forecasts point to a significant skills shortage of 30–40% by 2030. Career guidance is a necessary and effective way to prepare the specialists the economy will need.
After all, nearly a third of Ukrainian schoolchildren—about 1.3 million children—grow up in small communities (State Statistics Service, 2025). This is a massive, yet underutilized talent pool.
Deloitte research (2024) also points to an internal effect: 87% of employees engaged in corporate volunteering demonstrate higher loyalty to their employer, and over half note an increased sense of purpose and fulfillment.
When a business enters a small community, it does not just help children believe in their own strengths—it creates an environment where professional dreams become achievable, regardless of where a child was born.
GoTeach is an example of how, instead of searching for ready-made specialists, a company takes a leadership position and creates the conditions for them to grow. Children mature faster than we think. In 5 to 7 years, today’s graduates will be the ones with whom we build businesses and develop industries. Entering this new phase alongside those for whom your business is a clear and familiar story—one they learned to believe in while sitting at school desks—is truly invaluable.
