At the beginning of July, the UGCC Patriarchal Commission in Youth Affairs announced the start of the social project competition for youth in the parishes of the Lviv and Kyiv dioceses and Kamyanets-Podilsk diocese.
Active young Greek-Catholics had a chance to win the 16,000 UAH prize toward realizing their idea in their parishes. The “I Want! I Can! I Will!” social project competition has been taking place for two years as a part of the “Someone Will Not Do It” social initiative, supported by the Metropolitan Andrew Sheptytsky Charity Foundation and the RENOVABIS Charity Foundation.
Читай українською: ВИЗНАЧЕНО ПЕРЕМОЖЦІВ МОЛОДІЖНОГО КОНКУРСУ СОЦІАЛЬНИХ ПРОЕКТІВ «ХОЧУ! МОЖУ! ЗРОБЛЮ!»
21 applications forms from many parishes arrived by August 30. The biggest amount of applications were received from the parishes of the Lviv Archdiocese, and they had concerned the “happy family” domain. The leader of this domain, within the “Someone Will Not Do It” social initiative, Mariya Dzyubiy, states, “The initiation of similar projects not only contributes to turning attention toward the importance and the holistic dimension of the family, but also plays a part in, so to say, relationship building and education formation, which, in perspective, I hope, will help young couples to solve many problems.”
By September 5th, the judges of the contest had selected the winners and informed everyone who had applied about the results of the selection. This year, 8 projects that will receive financial support, totalling 128,000 in total, became the winners.
The preferences were given to those projects which had foreseen the cooperation of a few parishes in addition of those which had the perspective of future development.
The winning projects are the following:
- “Plant a tree initiative is your contribution to children ecology,” the Sts Apostles Peter and Paul Parish of the UGCC, the city of Smila, Rev. Andriy Chyk, the curator.
- “To think globally, to act locally,” the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary Church, the city of Polonne, Rev. Volodymyr Chaskovskyi, the curator.
- “Let us help our soldiers and youth build happy families,” the Beatified Mykolay Charnetskyi Church, city of Zolochiv, Rev. Yuriy Halabuda, the curator.
- “Christian course for the pregnant,” the Mykola Dobryi Church, Kyiv, Diana Ilnytska, the curator.
- “We travel through Ukraine with a prayer,” the St Nicholas the Wondermaker at the Askold Grave Church, Kyiv, Myroslava Mazur, the curator.
- “‘Read me a fairy tale’ family club of the living word,” the Hieromartyr Josafat Church, the Holy Trinity Church, the Mother of God of Pochaiv Church, the city of Kamyanets-Podilsk, Inna Tkach, the curator.
- “Parents and children together!” the Great Martyr Demetrius Parish, the village of Obroshyno, Oresta Zasadna, the curator.
- “The flower children,” the Transfiguration of Our Lord Parish of the UGCC, city of Lviv, Tetyana Novolodska, the curator.
In two weeks, after the selection, on September 17th, the curators and members of the winning initiative groups participated in trainings devoted to project management and media communication in order to effectively start the realization of their projects. The project management trainer, Dmytro Yakymets, told members about the methods of effective work planning, the peculiarities of volunteer involvement in events, social partnership and a lot of other useful information, of which the participants will be able to not only successfully realize their ideas, but also develop them into bigger and more expansive projects. To add, the head of the “Your City” city portal, Taras Yatsenko, shared his experience with the participants, talking about ways to present their activity to the media and to make it public on social networks in the best way.
Now, the winners of the competition start the most responsible stage: the realization of their projects.
Mariya Kisil, the coordinator of the competition
