Lviv to host Ukrainians from all over the world

The International Institute of Education, Culture, and Links with the Diaspora (MIOK) of the National University of Lviv Polytechnic is going to organize a number of events to be attended by representatives of the worldwide Ukrainian community. The institute director Iryna Kliuchkovska said to The Day:

“Firstly, we will host on August 18-19 an annual conference of the World Federation of Ukrainian Women Organizations which represents Ukrainian women from 17 countries and, incidentally, has its own UN delegation with the right of a deliberative vote. The 10th Ukrainian World Congress will also be held in Lviv on August 20-22. The event, to be held under the slogan ‘contra spem spero’ (I hope against hope), will be dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Holodomor. This is one of the main directions in which the Ukrainian World Congress – an organizational superstructure that embraces ethnic Ukrainians from 33 countries – works. And I wish to single out the third event that will be held on August 23-34 – the congress ‘Ukrainians of the World as a Factor that Consolidates the State of Ukraine in the International Community’ – because it has been traditionally focusing on the issues important for Ukrainians of the world since 2006.”

Kliuchkovska emphasizes that this year’s event is dedicated to the 200th anniversary of Taras Shevchenko’s birth.

“We are doing this in 2013, a year in advance, not only to revitalize Ukrainian communities abroad, but also to show Ukrainians throughout the world that there is a date that cannot be celebrated in just a week’s, month’s or even year’s time. The congress, which will be held under the slogan ‘To my compatriots in Ukraine and not in Ukraine’ and attended by Ukrainians from 27 countries, will discuss, among other things, the questions of labor migration, Ukrainian education abroad, and preservation of national memory as a sign of the Ukrainian nation’s spirituality. The event’s aim is to show that far from all the basic concepts and meanings expounded by Shevchenko have been fully comprehended,” she said.

Kliuchkovska also said that the Shevchenko commemorative congress would comprise not only two workshops, but also 27 related events. One can see the program of the 4th Congress to Mark the 200th Anniversary of Taras Shevchenko’s Birth on the MIOK’s website http://www.miok.lviv.ua.

“The most pleasant and precious point in our congress is that people bring us their initiatives and we cannot deny them this opportunity,”  Kliuchkovska says. “Our congress is particular in that we began to prepare for it several years ago. Also noteworthy is the fact that we set up a public committee as long ago as 2009. Our organizing committee includes National Shevchenko Prize winner Ihor Kalynets, Professor of Arts Studies Roman Yatsiv, chairperson of the Olena Teliha Society Tetiana Shalenko, and some MIOK representatives. We have rallied together in order to do what each of us can do at their workplace. It is, after all, one of Shevchenko’s theses – all together, as a community. All together, we have done very much. Besides, I must emphasize that we have always drawn support from the National University of Lviv Polytechnic. I think it is a unique instance when a technological higher educational institution is so closely involved in a humanitarian process by actively supporting the upcoming Shevchenko congress.”