Community of Kropyvnytskyi carried out restoration and reboot under the Healing Communities Project

Day 1.

The first day was a closer acquaintance with representatives of 8 communities from Kirovohrad region and the opening of the event in a beautiful place — the Patriarchal House of the UGCC (Patriarchal House in Lviv) together with Svitlana Buhai, a business practitioner, lecturer, and co-author of the educational project Healing Communities from idea to implementation with the support of the Patriarchal Foundation Mudra Sprava.

The lectures taught us to understand the missions of teams, the foundations of trust, and types of behaviour. There were also practical tasks during which we discussed the problems of our community and methods of solving them.

Day 2.

The second day of the Healing Communities Educational and Outreach Project. The topic of the lecture is «Resilience».

Resilience is not an inherent quality. It is a skill that can be trained and developed.

We learnt how to develop this quality, which helps to navigate the challenges and difficulties of today, the ability to withstand stress, restore ourselves, our mental, physical, and emotional state after traumatic events, and most importantly, how to help others develop this quality.

After the lectures, we went on a scheduled excursion to the modern educational campus of the Sheptytsky Center of the Ukrainian Catholic University.

An important aspect of the educational program is bringing people together and getting to know each other. «Often one community unites several towns and villages. Being in the same community, they should be united and have a common idea, a common mission to implement and grow. In fact, here, in our program, they begin to see how many wonderful people there are nearby. That’s the most important thing: to see that there is someone else next to me who is filled with the same values and is charged with them. This is how a hromada is created and how a community is created,» says Fr Lyubomyr.

Day 3.

The third day of the Healing Communities Educational and Outreach Project. Lecture topic: Psychology — Healing in the CBT model.

The lecturer was Anna Kartman, a clinical psychologist, CBT specialist, schema therapist, and a full member of the Ukrainian Association of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

The participants studied such topics as stress resistance, cognitive filters, stress deployment theory, types of stress, resource activities, and performed practical tasks.

Day 4.

The fourth day of the Healing Communities Educational and Outreach Project.

On this day, Oleh Oliynyk, a representative of the Ukrainian Educational Platform, spoke about the launch of the Resilience program. This is a project implemented by the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine and is a part of the All-Ukrainian Program «How are you?» of First Lady Olena Zelenska.

On this day, the participants also listened to a lecture on the history of Ukraine. In particular, about how our country has been «walking» towards independence and freedom for centuries. The lecturer of this course is a military officer, so there was no opportunity to take a group photo.

After the lectures, there was free time, so the whole group went on excursions around the beautiful city of Lviv.

One of the program participants, Iryna, said: «All my expectations were fully met. I have gained new knowledge, emotional relief, and inspiration to work further. I was extremely impressed by the lecturers, their competence, professionalism, and energy. By their example, they gave me a charge to improve and learn further. Thank you all very much!»

Day 5.

The fifth day of the Healing Communities Educational and Outreach Project. The topic of the lectures was Leadership.

The lecturer was Andrii Rozhdestvenskyi. The participants had the opportunity to analyse who a leader is and what qualities are needed for leadership. They also considered the 11 virtues of a leader.

We are very grateful that we had the opportunity to watch the film «Ukraine: Leadership Exam» and to understand in more detail what we learned at the lecture, using the example of the unbreakable people of our country.

Fr Lyubomyr Yavorskyy sums up the first results of the project. «This is our ninth round. There is only one more group to go. And we already see small success stories. It is right to talk about a project when we evaluate it and see the results. We already have communities that have gone from the very beginning to the end. At the end, a strategic session is held in the community with the participation of our experts to help to build a development strategy for the community. It is then that the community, having got to know each other, restored, and healed, begins to plan the restoration of their own home. It is truly heartwarming when people come and say that they have been healed. We realised that the healing of the community happens when I am personally healed. And then I have power. This is a tremendous experience. They are inspired, they start to give birth to certain ideas, they start to formulate and implement them. This means that this program is achieving the goals we set at the very beginning of its launch.»