Caritas-Spes Mission initiates social ministries in communities

From June 29 to July 2, Caritas-Spes conducted 2 two-day training sessions on Social Management for parish and community activists who are ready to address the social needs of their communities. In total, about 40 participants from 14 settlements from 10 regions of Ukraine passed 2 rounds of selection:

1. internal, which was held among active parishioners of the RCC and local branches of Caritas-Spes;
2. external, with more than 40 other applicants applied. The competition for the 1st place consisted of four people.

The training was conducted by professional coaches, the School of Social Work teachers of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy: Olena Ivanova, Nataliia Dmytryshyna and Oksana Volhina. The first part of the training was devoted to familiarization with the state standards for the social services provision and innovations in the legislative framework that regulates social work in Ukraine. Participants worked on a social problems map in their communities, created a social services chart provided in each of their communities by municipal, public and charitable organizations.

In the second part of the training, participants worked on projects that are designed to solve problems in their communities and went through all the stages of creating a social project. 

After four days of training with two different groups, the coaches commented on their impressions of the training. "We have developed a program aiming at providing general skills and understanding of the project. All participants came with ideas and desires for change and action, but when we asked them whether their personal idea could form the basis of the project and whether it would affect the community, the participants had some difficulties", said the coach Nataliia Dmytryshyna. She also noted that the program was designed so that in two days each group could move from their own idea to the social project idea with an impact on the community as a whole.

Ruslan Kraplych, the first year head of the project Strengthening Local Self-Organization and Civic Engagement in Ukraine, said that those training modules were only the first stage to the formation of project teams in 7 centers of the Mission, which would identify priorities of problems, develop projects to solve them, and thus expand the system of social services of the Roman Catholic Church. The next stage will be the Social Innovations Summer School which will be held on July 29 - August 2, 2019 in the Carpathians and will complement the projects of the participants with a social component.

"Upon returning to their communities, participants will choose a top priority problem and prepare a project to attract funding. These projects will be one of the selection criteria for participation in the next stage - the Social Innovations Summer School, during which the projects will be improved in terms of social innovation, so that they really solve the problems of the region or local community and are viable," said Ruslan Kraplych, the project manager.

"The training program was designed in a way that the participants tried to analyze the process from the idea's inception, went through the skeleton of the project and looked at the idea taking into account all the important components of the analysis. They will enter the next stage, the Summer School, with ready-made drafts of projects aimed at changes in their city or village," said the coach Oksana Volhina.

Apart from this, the Social Innovations Summer School  is open to ideas from communities, and despite the fact that participants who did not take part in the first stage can apply, they can independently work out the tasks under the guidance of the curriculum head Oleksandra Horiacheva, as well as apply for participation in the Summer School. Fill in the application form:

The project Strengthening Local Self-Organization and Civic Engagement in Ukraine is implemented by the Religious Mission Caritas-Spes of the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine financed by the German Government and the Renovabis Foundation.