Spokesperson for the EoC in the Ukraine
To Form Young Leaders for the Common Good
At conclusion of the specialization in Economy and Management at the IUS with a thesis on Economy of communion and development, received only a few months ago, Marta Pancheva returned to Bulgaria, her country of origin. Two years ago she had chosen Sophia on the Internet, after having taken some lessons in economy from prof. Bruni at the University of Milan.
Some working opportunities have lately opened up for her. In the meantime, she has been invited to the Ukraine for a touring presentation on the Economy of communion in some universities of this country, together with Alberto Ferrucci, amongst the first Italian entrepreneurs to have welcomed and made their own the testimony of Chiara Lubich (here's the travel report). Marta writes:
“I had left for the Ukraine hoping to be able to give my contribution so that new prospectives would open up for students of economy we might have met. Instead, today I find myself reflecting on the great gift I myself received in meeting people enthusiastic to be working concretely towards the development of their country.
With Oleh Luka and Mykhaylo Melnyc, ucrainian friends of the Commission Justitia et Pax in the Ukraine who organized the conferences in the universities of Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv, I entered into a country in which the model of the Economy of communion – which, in imitation of the first Christian communities, is planning on a world without poverty, where all freely share and the needs of others become ones’ own –showed a possible way, both on a practical and academic level.
I could not but help comparing the Ukraine to Bulgaria, my country, which, after more than 23 years of post-communist transition still feels strongly the lack of social networks able to take on the depth of responsibility for the presente and the future, as is happening, albeit in different measure, in many other countries of the ex-soviet union.
Today in the Ukraine, one works to form young leaders ready to work for the common good (and not only for one’s private interests...), to offer young people the technical competences necessary, but also elements for depth and comparison so as to be able to form an autonomous moral conscience.
There’s a great wish to get doing: we saw it in the many projects which Oleh and Mykhaylo have begun and are starting up, with that determination of the young who, after the meetings in the universities, they stopped to ask further knowledge, in moments of dialogue with the vice-rector of the Catholic University of Lviv, and with those responsible of the various departments ( in the fields of business, in the non-profit sector, etc.) with both teachers and researchers.
Presenting the EoC, I tried to join the two inseparable elements: the cultural elaboration that went on to develop from the first ideal inspiration, and the concrete practicality that has illuminated its meaning in the past years. Alberto ferrucci’s testimony, his great experience, the strong commitment in looking for answers to the perverse dynamics of the economy and finance which the world is reeling from.
22 years after 1991 – ‘year of birth’ of the EoC and of the independent State of the Ukraine – we talked not of communism or of consumerism, but of communion: a prophetic way yet real at the same time, for businesspeople, workers, consumers, administrators and citizenry, families from the world over.
The young people we met were magnificent, aware of the responsibility investing them in respect to the challenges of change: for them too, the EoC is a seed thrown in a fertile soil, in a country lacerated by today’s secularism. The encounter with a light along the journey.
