Activities Ukraine Start​

​

On 7th and 8th of February, CARe Network's President Jean Pierre Wilken visited Ukraine. He met representatives of organisations in Ukraine which have recently joined CARe Network. On the 7th, there was a meeting with Darya Bondarenko, Program director of the

International Leadership and Development Centre (IDLC) and a number of staff members (http://www.ildcua.org/).

They organised a successful seminar on Social Inclusion, which attracted 70 people coming from different regions of Ukraine, representatives of NGO's with and without disability, parents who have a child with a disability, involved in parental associations and inclusive education projects, leaders of social services, professionals and representatives of the government.

Jean Pierre Wilken also had a meeting with Nikolai Kuleba, the national ombudsman for child welfare. Ukraine has started a process of deinstitutionalisation, but still more than 100.000 children and 160000 adults are living in institutions. New examples of community services are needed.

​

On the 8th there was a meeting with Anastaciia Kuntsevska and colleagues of the Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University. Jean Pierre also participated in a Winter School which was organised for students of the university on the subject of social enterprises and social entrepreneurship. New plans are forthcoming for promoting social inclusion and community based services in Ukraine. IDLC will start developing a train-the-trainer programme in the CARe Model. An initiative of students and lecturers of Kyiv University introducing the ICT-based Helpific platform in Ukraine, originally developed in Estonia, is already on its way. 

​

- Updates from Jean Pierre Wilken