Caritas-Spes Discusses Volunteers At Seminar

As reported in a summary press conference held at Kyiv’s Catholic Media Center on 1 October, the institution of voluntary service is not as well developed in Ukraine as it is in the West. A simple economic reason was mentioned: it is difficult to encourage people to do not-for-profit charity work if they themselves can hardly make both ends meet. But Caritas representatives testify that these are exactly the people who, as a rule, become the most active volunteers. The seminar also considered the problem of the social adaptation of HIV- and AIDS-infected patients. A main area of Caritas’ activity is moral support of the victims, so that these people do not feel that they are outside of the community. Numerous employees of Caritas-Spes (Latin for “Charity-Hope”), which has 27 centers in Ukraine, attended the seminar. Also present were representatives of the Maltese Cross aid society from Lutsk and the eparchial bureaus of Caritas-Ukraine in Ternopil and Sokal. (The Roman Catholic “Caritas-Spes” is administered separately from Caritas-Ukraine, which is run by the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.) Bishop Stanislaw Szyrokoradiuk, president of Caritas-Spes, and Fr. Antuan Zondag, director of Caritas-France, also attended the seminar. At the end of the seminar a ceremony was held to dedicate the chapel near the Children’s Rehabilitation Center in Yablunytsia.(The chapel and the seminar's participants are pictured above.)