Hafia Erlen is of German and Ukrainian descent; she was born in Cologne and lived there until she finished high school at age 19. Since childhood, she has traveled regularly to Ukraine to visit her family.

In 2022, at age 16, she left for Japan for a year-long exchange program; and it was then that she began to feel guilty about not being in Ukraine. In 2024, at age 18, she began volunteering with Repair Together as part of their INBUT international work camp in the Chernihiv region to rebuild homes destroyed during the occupation of the region.

In 2026, she moved permanently to Ukraine and became a coordinator for Repair Together. Her mother, Mariana Sadovska, is a Ukrainian musician who grew up in Lviv during the Soviet era and is interested in Ukrainian musical heritage. Her father is a German theater director. She grew up surrounded by traditional Ukrainian songs and, since 2022, has felt a deep need to do her part to help secure Ukraine’s victory.