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3rd Ecumenical Social Week started in Lviv
4 October solemn opening of 3rd Ecumenical Social Week eventuated by press-conference at small session-hall of Lviv City Hall.
All-Ukrainian social forum will be conducted from October 4 till October 10 under the slogan “Trust. Responsibility. Philanthropy.” Participants of Ecumenical Social Week are Churches, authority, business, public sector, educational institutions of Ukraine and the world.
Ukrainian business learns to build trust
6 October – third day of 3rd Ecumenical Social Week passed under the theme of “Trust as a base of building of effective business.”
As a special guest of the day was present Martin Raiser, chief representative of World Bank for Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus, who in his report made review of empirical examples concerning social capital and economic performance in transition economies. And on its basis has proven, that low social engagement and undeveloped civil society is a menace in transition of country to a higher economic level, as level of trust between people and trust to state depends in particular on them.
3rd Ecumenical Social Week: drawing conclusions
On Friday, October 8, conclusions of work of round-table sessions in the framework of 3rd Ecumenical Social Week were drawn at National University “Lviv Polytechnics”. During this day, out of 8 sessions, participants from Ukraine and abroad had opportunity to present their own view of continuous theme of Ecumenical Social Week – trust, responsibility and philanthropy. In particular to discuss such themes: collaboration of city and church to create new social services, assessment of charity as a moral or material category, role of mass-media in solving important social issues, social volunteering, trust as a foundation of partnership in social initiatives, collaboration of laity in socio-charitable sphere, responsibility of a person for health as a component of social responsibility, and how to reach an agreement in society.
Establishing National net of Ecumenical Social Weeks
Establishing National net of Ecumenical Social Weeks became main event of October 5 in the framework of the second day of 3rd Ecumenical Social Week in Ukrainian Catholic University. Honorable guest of the session became Bernard Cheneves, vice-president of Social Weeks of France and other participant and partners not only from Lviv, but also Mykolayiv, Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, Ternopil, Sum, Donetsk, Poltava.
7 October – fourth day of 3rd Ecumenical Social Week started with opening of academic conference “Trust. Responsibility. Philanthropy.”
Participants had an opportunity to listen to the speech of Kateryna Yushchenko, Chairman of the Board of the International Charitable Foundation “Ukraine 3000” and Doctor of Philosophy, the director of Nonprofit Executive Education at the University of Notre Dame, Marc Hardy. Main attention of speakers was given to understanding of philanthropy, not only as financial help of wealthy people, but also as sacrificial love to those, who need support and encouragement. As Kateryna Yushchenko noted, philanthropy, first of all, is “a spiritual question, philosophy of how to share with neighbors”. Marc Hardy represented “philanthropy of personal encouragement”, which means that despite different circumstances, every person in her life can help establishing trust, sincerely cheer up others, give them hope. “Philanthropy helps, - stressed Mark Hardy, -building such relations of trust and marks, when we believe in intentions of other people and in their potential to make life better for themselves, and at the same time to create conditions of existence for their families, churches, communities and countries”.