Perspectief 2015-28

Perspectie 18 Lidiya Lozova and Reconciliation” commission. The discussion of this topic will be continued in Kyiv at the September Assumption Readings international theological conference. The youngest and most promising initiative connected with our parish is the opening of the “Children of Hope” charitable foundation (to be established by St. Clement’s Center) and “Children of Hope” social and educational center on the parish’s territory. It will be a center which will provide trainings in understanding and reconciliation, creative classes in art and music, as well as general education activities aimed at children of different ages on a systematic bases. The target audience of the Center will be both children of the migrant families and children of the families of the wounded and killed soldiers from the Makariv region. However, it will be open for all children of Lishnya and the Makariv region, who will wish to participate, as well as to children from Kyiv. 12 The first small but significant activity of the Center will be a workshop on Easter egg-painting on Monday after the Easter. Accompanying the workshop there will be a meeting with the representatives of the Association of the Participants of the Anti-Terrorist Operation in the East, who come from the Makariv region, at which possible concrete initiatives for children will be discussed. Closely connected with the parish, the Center is to be a witness of the Church which gives a soul to the world and a taste for life. It is to become an experimental laboratory both for innovative informal education and for the reconciliation process among the youngest Ukrainian generation. It will coordinate the cooperation with the St. Ambrose parish in Milan, the summer trips to Taize and to Italy and other ecumenical initiatives. To those people in the region, who suffered most in the course of the crisis, it can give hope not only for a living at a sustainable level, but for a very promising future in communion with Europe. 12 With the help of the foundation we plan to construct a house for migrant families on the parish’s territory.