Since the beginning of the war, UCU has contributed $1.18 million to Ukraine’s victory

Monday, 28 March, 2022

REPORT ON UCU’S ACTIVITIES DURING THE WAR

Since the beginning of the war, UCU has contributed $1.18 million to Ukraine’s victory

“I do not see fatigue in your eyes. On the contrary – the activity is growing.”

An excerpt from the appeal of Fr. Bohdan Prach, Rector of UCU, to the university community on March 25, 2022

Eight years of Russia’s war against Ukraine. One month since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of the sovereign state. One month ago, the world faced the greatest historical challenge of the last few decades because of the mad dictator’s whims and the tacit indulgence of the majority of Russian society. It has been one month since the previously quiet days and nights in Ukraine became filled with air raid sirens, shell explosions, tears of pain, and losses for millions of Ukrainian citizens. Today, there are no half-answers and half-measures for us Ukrainians. There is only an unconditional and dedicated struggle against the Russian invasion, our only chance to preserve our identity and state. Today, Shakespeare’s “To be or not to be” carries a sacred meaning for our country and the entire civilised world. Ukraine and its people have already started a powerful revolution. A new world order is being created – sadly, at the cost of great sacrifices on the part of Ukrainians.

There are thousands of fronts in this struggle, and the most important one is on the line of military confrontation. The heroic Ukrainian army has been defending our land from the Russian occupier for an entire month without rest. At the same time, millions of Ukrainians work on the home front, waging their daily battle against the enemy. The Ukrainian Catholic University is fighting, too, in its own way – through the efforts of its teachers, staff, students, and the incredible support of friends and philanthropists around the world to find a path to our future victory.

A few weeks before the full-scale invasion, the university established operational headquarters to ensure the stability, safety, and development of various scenarios of our institution’s activities in wartime. Today, in cooperation with the heads of the academic and administrative departments of the university, the headquarters ensures the efficient work of the university. This work is detailed below.

UCU’s Humanitarian Front

Since 2014 and till now, the UCU Volunteer Corps “Volunteer Hundred” has actively helped the military, their families and civilians in the conflict zone. This initiative group consists of the university staff and students. During the month of the war, the Volunteer Hundred has helped to provide medicines and medical equipment to hospitals in Chernihiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, Zaporizhia, etc. as well as mobile medical units in combat zones. The volunteer initiative works closely with the Caritas Charitable Foundation and a number of religious communities on the delivery of medicines, products for longer-term food storage, clothing, and hygiene products to logistics centers in Poltava and Cherkasy. From these places, basic essentials are transferred to neighboring regions and districts close to the front lines: Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, Kherson. Most activities of “Volunteer Hundred” are integrated with the initiatives of the UCU Volunteer Center, which was launched immediately after Fubruary 24.

During the first three days of the full-scale Russian invasion, UCU’s students and university staff set up the Volunteer Centre to provide humanitarian aid to those in need. Thus, the work algorithm was developed, the mechanisms of receiving aid from abroad (Poland, France, Spain, Germany, Austria and Italy) were put in place, local entrepreneurs and benefactors were established, the process of sorting and cataloguing the received aid was agreed upon, and the logistics of processing requests for help was set up.

Support for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and the Armed Forces came actively from around the world.

“I watched the news about Russia attacking Ukraine and realised I had no right to stand idly by,” said Christophe Marse. He arrived in Lviv in a minibus from France, bringing more than a tonne of humanitarian aid.

We received aid deliveries from 3 trucks, around 32 minibuses, and more than 50 cars during the first month of our work. The Student Volunteer Centre processed 265 requests from the military, volunteers, civilians in need, and hospitals.

More than 25 tonnes of various aid were sent to 27 cities of Ukraine, including those in the line of fire: Kyiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Zaporizhia, Severodonetsk, Vinnytsia, Cherkasy, Dnipro, Gostomel, Zhytomyr, Yuzhnoukrainsk, Popasna, Bakhmut, Kropyvnytskyi, and others.

Nearly 100 volunteers (most of them UCU students) joined the Centre.

“The meaning I put into each of my activities has changed drastically. Now, first and foremost, I want to help Ukraine. Every task I undertake aims to serve the present or the future of Ukraine in a certain way,” says Daryna Kolmyk, a third-year student in the Sociology program.

Another essential component of the UCU’s Humanitarian Front consists of the following student initiatives:

– weaving camouflage nets (60 nets made by more than 200 volunteers);

– workshop for writing letters to the military (more than 1000 letters sent);

*Postcards for the military from UCU students. Photo: Fiora Garenzi*

– baking workshop for the military (more than 200 kg of pastries sent);

– children’s room for internally displaced children (with about 30 children and 22 volunteers engaged).

Many among the university’s students and staff are actively engaged in other humanitarian initiatives in Lviv, such as supporting the volunteer kitchen (cooking for those in need and the military at the front), helping with IDPs at the station, working in district administrations’ volunteer centres, etc.

Among other things, the Ukrainian Catholic University provides financial support to facilitate the logistical processes of the public initiative Save Ukraine UA, which offers humanitarian aid to residents of Kyiv and Kharkiv. Also, the university cooperates with the Ukrainian Educational Platform to provide combatants with personal protective equipment.

UCU’s Medical Front

The university has established the headquarters of workers and students helping provide medicines and medical supplies to military and civilian hospitals in Ukrainian cities and some displaced persons affected by the war.

*International Volunteer Front: Ambulances that will go to the hot spots of war*

In cooperation with “Regno” Logistics Company and the “Kryla Nadiyi” (Wings of Hope) Charity Foundation, the university has purchased and delivered medical supplies to hospitals in Kyiv, Dnipro, Odesa, Vinnytsia, Lviv, etc., and provided the country’s hot spots with tactical medicine. Thanks to our philanthropists, the university allocated over UAH 23 million ($785,072) for the purposes mentioned above.

The Student Volunteer Centre coordinates the provision of medical supplies on-demand. “Hospitallers”, the Red Cross, Kyiv Okhmatdyt, and “Patients of Ukraine” are among the recipient organisations.

UCU is helping people with special needs (in cooperation with the NGO “Equal Opportunities for All” and the “Dzherelo” Training and Rehabilitation Centre), children (Care in Action) and volunteers supporting the elderly.

The university has housed two international teams of medical professionals from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, who came to help Ukrainians suffering from the war.

The Rubicon team comprises 22 specialists. It is a mobile medical unit of the World Health Organization, including six doctors and medical staff, i.e. nurses and paramedics. The team’s operational headquarters meets the needs of people in medical care, particularly IDPs.

The team of SMART Medical Aid from the United Kingdom, which is currently based in Lviv, consists of 15 people. UCU student volunteers help these medical professionals. SMART Medical Aid provides aid to those in need of medical care and conducts training in tactical medicine.

UCU cooperates closely with the UNICEF Foundation, which aids internally displaced persons living in universities, monasteries, and shelters, and supports the operation of perinatal centres, particularly in Lviv and Kharkiv.

UCU’s Media Front

From the very first day of the war, UCU began active work on the media battlefield. A new website was created to collect and store information about the work of the University during the war. It covers daily updates on all the projects initiated and implemented by the university, as well as current information about the war in Ukraine in English.

Over the first month of the war, UCU issued and published 15 statements to the world community about Russia’s aggression against our country and 92 news articles about the current situation in Ukraine in English. We are actively sending these appeals to our academic partners and friends worldwide.

*Students of the UCU School of Journalism and Media Communications*

Among hundreds of different materials and interviews that appeared in independent international media and social networks, there are the following: the speeches of Borys Gudziak, the Metropolitan of the UGCC Philadelphia Archdiocese and President of UCU, Rector of UCU Father Bohdan Prach, and First Vice-Rector Taras Dobko; speeches by the Vice-Rector for University Mission Myroslav Marynovych; texts by the UCU Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs and Internationalization Dmytro Sherengovsky; articles and speeches by the UCU Professor Yaroslav Hrytsak; and lectures by the UCU professors and lecturers Yurij Pidlisny, Oleksandr Zaitsev, Anastasiia Shyroka and others.

Thanks to the cooperation between the UCU School of Journalism and Communications and the Information and Marketing Department, more than 100 different text and video materials were published on the university’s website, as well as 50 infographics and visualisations of enemy war crimes, volunteer centre reports, and practical advice, which are vital during the war.

*UCU Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs and Internationalization Dmytro Sherengovsky*

“Together with our classmates, we work on creating content for social networks and the website of the Ukrainian Catholic University. We also communicate daily with foreign audiences. Thus, we learn to convey true information about the current situation in Ukraine and the university during the war to our European friends while attracting financial and material assistance for the army,” said Nina Bondar, a student at the School of Journalism and Communications.

In addition, together with students of the Faculty of Applied Sciences, students of the UCU School of Journalism and Communications created the Ukraine. Victory Chronicles landing page, which provides English-language materials about the war. The school graduates have developed a website providing instructions on proper communication about the war using materials ready for distribution.

International TV channels such as EWTN, CBC, RAI1, Vatican News, DW, News nation prime, Crux, The Pillars Ukraine, CNA staff, KAI and others have prepared information about UCU’s activities during the war. The materials published as a result of these visits can be viewed in the UCU section of the media.

UCU has also launched a “Short Stories of the Great War” project to collect witnesses’ stories. As part of the initiative, the information department team and volunteers collect stories of people forced to flee the war and those who now work on the home front helping the Ukrainian army and displaced persons. About 20 interviews have already been recorded. Ukrainians and Espreso.TV media platforms acted as the project’s media partners.

The university’s official YouTube channel (5.51 thousand subscribers) released 57 videos on “War in Ukraine”, 26 videos with various statements from the UCU community, 4 videos with songs performed by the UCU School Theatre, 4 videos as part of the project mentioned above (“Short Stories of the Great War”) and 4 video lectures with talks about the war from UCU teachers. The team produces almost all content in Ukrainian and English.

Also, the university provides free premises to the national broadcaster “Public Television”, whose employees were evacuated from Kyiv, contributing significantly to the struggle on the media front.

Teachers at the UCU Centre for Foreign Languages work tirelessly to translate media materials of the university and its partners (Espreso.TV, etc.) into foreign languages.

UCU’s Academic Front

The educational process at the Ukrainian Catholic University was not actually interrupted. From the first day of the war, the academic format was switched to a socially-oriented one. Teachers and students looked for projects that would allow them to use their skills and knowledge to benefit Ukraine. On March 14, UCU resumed a full-fledged distance learning process. When organising efficient work with all disciplines is impossible, students can listen to some of them using national and international educational online platforms. Also, teachers have adopted a more flexible approach to deadlines and assignments. Today, students successfully combine their studies and volunteer work.

“We have to help each other as much as we can. Our efforts and volunteering are extremely important for Ukraine’s victory. After the war, we will have to rebuild our country. Ukraine needs professionals and their maximum involvement in the real sector of the economy,” said Dmytro Sherengovsky, UCU Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs and Internationalization.

Taking care of UCU students who were forced to go abroad (about 140 people), the university offered them the opportunity for academic “shelter” in foreign partner universities. This involves enrolling such students in the programs of the respective universities abroad and granting them the status of exchange students as an alternative to distance learning at UCU or studying at a foreign university based on the offers for Ukrainian migrant students.

To support Ukrainian universities in the war zone, UCU has initiated the UCU Open University project, which aims to create educational offers and products for a vast student body of IDPs to continue their education, as well as for IDPs of all ages interested in a lifelong learning approach and the acquisition of new competencies and skills. Also, together with DePaul University from the United States, UCU is launching online training courses.

*UCU students study and volunteer in a shelter during an air raid*

UCU is working to find ways to neutralise the influence of the “Russian world”, overcome the consequences and traumas caused by this ideology, and form an appropriate agenda in international academic circles.

To this end, UCU maintains constant communication and extensive consultations with partner universities (including University of Notre Dame, DePaul University, Georgetown University, USA; University of Alberta, Canada; Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (“Angelicum”), Italy), as well as university networks including the Federation of European Catholic Universities (FUCE), the International Federation of Catholic Universities (IFCU), Catholic Universities Partnership, and a group of British universities. UCU provides regular mailing lists to almost 200 universities and professional and academic associations and communities.

UCU’s Hospitality Front

In response to the current challenges, the Ukrainian Catholic University promptly arranged and provided its own premises for accommodating internally displaced persons, guests and partners of the university.

During the first 30 days of the war, UCU shelters hosted 502 IDPs from various settlements in Ukraine, including 36 children under the age of 6 and 103 between the ages of 6 to 18. Also, 32 Caritas employees and their families from Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions found shelter at the university.

Тhe IDPs are offered medical support, legal and social counselling, spiritual support, excursions, workshops, and assistance in caring for their children.

During the war, the Emmaus House, located on the territory of the UCU Collegium, has taken 26 people with disabilities and their relatives or accompanying persons under their care. Most of them were assisted with subsequent relocation. In another UCU location on John Paul II Avenue, 14 people with disabilities found shelter. This is practically the only shelter in Lviv, fully equipped to receive people with disabilities and limited mobility.

*UCU promptly arranged and provided its own premises for accommodating IDPs, guests and partners of the university.*

“We also organise psychological consultations in the shelter. This function is partially entrusted to teachers and students of the “Social Work” program. We organise masterclasses for our guests too,” says Yulia Kokoyachuk, the head of the bachelor’s program in Social Work and the coordinator of the shelter.

The displaced persons who have stayed at the university came from more than ten regions of Ukraine and various settlements affected by the bombing and hostilities. Many of these people lost everything: they left their destroyed homes empty-handed, and some even lost their relatives in the war.

*Master class on icon painting on glass for people fleeing the war*

Currently, UCU’s guest rooms also house 64 guests engaged in professional activities in Lviv (foreign volunteer doctors, and journalists from National Public Radio USA and “Suspilne” TV channel). The university’s classrooms have become a workplace for representatives of various organisations from abroad and other regions of Ukraine. Among them are SMART Medical Aid, Rubicon, the Red Cross Society of Ukraine, Kharkiv School of Architecture, a social project that helps children with cancer (“Hair for Share”), the British Council in Ukraine, the Council of Information Strategies, and others.

UCU’s Spiritual and Psychological Front

When one gets in over one’s head, the timely word of prayer, support, and compassion becomes a lifeline, helping us persevere. That is why the spiritual and psychological support of the needy became an essential part of the work at the Ukrainian Catholic University during the war.

Under the auspices of the Dean’s Office of Pastoral Affairs, UCU holds daily liturgical practices, memorial services for those who died in the war, as well as spiritual care and conversations with IDPs living in the Student Collegium and the educational building on John Paul II Avenue.

The Icon painting masterclasses, offered to our guests from the East by the UCU School of Icon Painting staff, serve as art therapy.

This much-needed spiritual support, involving 11 priests and 2 nuns at UCU, helps those who have difficulties coping with fear and panic attacks.

Additionally, university priests and theologians, including the dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Theology, Fr. Dr. Yuriy Shchurko, and Taras Tуmo, regularly publish spiritual reflections on war, cruelty, death, and forgiveness on various social networks as a reminder to not lose our human dignity during these trying times.

“We are patient because there is evil in the world – a terrible satanic evil embodied in Putin and those Russians supporting him. We do not accept their absurd plan for our lives, so they want to destroy us. However, the truth is that it is all up to God,” says Fr. Yuriy Shchurko, who shared spiritual reflections and advice on his website “Live by the Word”.

Yet another aspect of this front is the psychological support of those in need. To this end, UCU has established a counselling centre called “Poradnya”, which provided psychological support to 82 people in the first month of the war. UCU master’s students and teachers of the Psychology program acted as the centre’s consultants. Its primary clients are adults between the ages of 18 and 50 who are in a state of crisis (for example, staying at home during the shelling or leaving the country).

University psychologists have organised educational work to expand the knowledge and skills of psychological self-help during martial law. This is done through articles on the UCU Faculty of Health page, “Health Digest”, recommendations on social networks with short messages to facilitate psychological well-being, online lectures with the participation of teachers-psychologists for the UCU community beyond, and public articles on the topic of war.

“We are at war, and we are hardening our psychological resilience. We all need it to cope with the stress and trials associated with the horrors of war and secure victory,” says Oleg Romanchuk, psychotherapist, director of UCU’s Institute of Mental Health and the Ukrainian Institute of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

*Sviatoslav Vakarchuk, famous singer and civic activist, leader of the group Okean Elzy, met with students of the Ukrainian Catholic University*

Psychology students and teachers provide regular counselling to the centres and services of Lviv, helping those forced to relocate or who have lost their homes due to Russia’s military aggression.

______________________________________

30 days of struggle. Soon, volumes of research will be written about each of these days. We believe that one of them will be about UCU’s incredible community of friends and philanthropists who did everything to fulfil the university’s mission in our struggle for Ukraine’s right to be free.

“Thank you for actively helping displaced persons and our Armed Forces, and for not forgetting about those people who are around us and suffering. This shows that we have a big heart and can look holistically at the problems that exist in our community and society. Watching you, dear employees, teachers, students, I admire your perseverance. I do not see fatigue in your eyes. On the contrary – your activity is growing, and our strength of spirit is becoming stronger. Our actions have become more orderly. Our approach to volunteering, cooperation, mutual assistance has become systematic. This creates an atmosphere and an understanding that we are working as a single mechanism where everyone knows what to do. In these difficult circumstances, we draw inspiration and strength from each other. It creates the feeling of a big family. We thank our partners around the world for their comprehensive support: financial, informational, and humanitarian. Do not get tired, shout to the whole world that Ukraine needs support. Be with us. Stand up for us. May the Lord bless you, our Ukraine and all those who are now fighting for our independence at the front. Glory to Jesus Christ. Glory to Ukraine!” wrote UCU Rector Father Bohdan Prakh.

*Volunteer Centre provides humanitarian aid to those in need*

Our philanthropic partners:

Ukrainian Catholic University Foundation (USA)
Ukrainian Catholic Education Foundation (Canada)
Philadelphia Archdiocese of the UGCC (USA) – Philadelphia Metropolia of the Ukrainian Catholic Church
Catholic dioceses of Germany
Plast (France)
CNEWA (Canada)
Renovabis Foundation (Germany)
Porticus
UNICEF
L’Œuvre d’Orient
Ginger Foundation
Omelyan and Tatiana Antonovich Foundations
Drs Timothy and Luba Flanigan