On October 4, the Ukrainian Catholic University hosted a Good Talk about the value orientations of modern Ukrainian youth. It was a lively discussion during which participants discussed educational projects that educate young people, the importance of knowing history to become good citizens, and the army as a school of life for young Ukrainians.

The meeting was moderated by Zynovii Svereda, Doctor of Social Economics, political scientist, economist. The Good Talk lasted a long time and at ease. Several theses from the speakers:

"When we talk about values, we have to understand that this is something extremely important within us, something we are willing to die for, to donate.

Recently, we presented in Kyiv a study about the values ​​and needs of Crimean Tatars in Crimea. It is the value of freedom (as a basic value for the preservation of the people and to feel sufficiently healthy as an organism) and the value of security. It is a question of survival and moral pressure at the occupied territories. Crimean Tatars now have the adverb "Live in Crimea." Very important for us is still the issue of identity, the preservation of language, religion, tradition, while closing in ourselves. Because our seclusion can lead to self-isolation, it is a huge challenge for both Crimean Tatars and hundreds of pro-Ukrainian residents of Crimea. Now the values ​​of security and self-survival prevail for the people at the occupied territories,” – said Alim Aliyev, program director of the Crimean House.

Roman Tychkivskyi, Head of the Economic Leadership Program of the Western NIS Enterprise Fund, founder of the Ukrainian Leadership Academy, spoke about the education of young people through non-formal education. “It depends on the person's experience, education or upbringing how that person expresses himself.

I believe in the institutional system approach of educational projects that are capable to cover the state on a large scale.

I believe in what we do in terms of non-formal education, being a satellite of the formal education system and incorporating some elements into formal education, which naturally changes more slowly than the informal one. We ourselves manage what we do, and at the same time, we see that it really works. As we change young people, we change their parents and together we create a community that we want to see at the level of a whole society. We have to work on a larger scale, we must understand that the Ukrainian Catholic University, the Ukrainian Academy of Leadership, the Ostroh Academy, the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, the Black Sea National University of Petro Mohyla in Mykolayiv, etc., are not enough. We are not enough to change Ukrainian society. Quite often we do not communicate with each other or close ourselves in our environment.

We are not aggressive enough to cover other fields of activity because we should have been led by this enlightenment mission to reach as far as possible. That is why we, as the Ukrainian Leadership Academy, focus primarily on young people, so that they do not leave the country but see the challenges that are here as an opportunity to realize themselves, so that young people would be warriors – personalities on the road to victory.

We, in fact, lack such people on the side of good. Let us be warriors, each one of us, to bear this good, that at the end it may win.”

“History is an opportunity: by being simply interested in the past, to become good citizens. History enables us to understand people's reactions. We always try to give a voice to those who for some reason do not speak, and to strengthen the voices that help us to be strong, to be Ukrainians.”

Ukrainian journalist, historian, editor-in-chief of the “Historical Truth” project, Vakhtanh Kipiani also noted the importance of understanding historical processes. Fr. Dr. Bohdan Prakh spoke about the Ukrainian Catholic University,which is always at the peak of Ukrainian universities, and its values: “Today young people need leaders, we needed more moral authority. It seems to me that today the youth is not very receptive to the authorities, does not want to see them, but wants to see the leaders. We need to understand this in order to be able to communicate with them and to convey our, human, and Christian values, so that they would live in their hearts. The young people from different parts of Ukraine with different acquired traditions and values come to us. The big challenge for us is to keep them coming to us. When we have them, we must witness our values so much that they would become the authority to them, as we see them, and become for them a leader, as they want to see it. If our teachers and the rectorate would cease in witnessing – the university will be empty the next day. We care about it, think about it and pray for it. As a university, we are ready to serve in different formats to those environments that feel able and need to join our environment.We hope that other environments that are being created will seek to unite in their search for ways to shape our youth. Now we switched to a different way of working with young people, seeking contact and dialogue with their parents. Maybe it's too late. However, these are families where something valuable and important is being created. What we are doing is giving an example of something different, that in our circumstances we can do differently. There is no need to fear corruption, it has its roots only in mentality, nowhere else. When we are coming out with a pure heart, we will live in absolute purity,” – says Fr. Dr. Bohdan Prakh.

Fr. Andrii Zelinskyi told about the values as survival, the task of education and the importance of the army. “The military service must be a school of life, because it is a powerful large-scale social institution through which, under a formal call, a large segment of the Ukrainian population passes. Therefore, the quality of Ukrainian society depends on what values are articulated in the military service.

Tomorrow we will forget about heroes unless we transform the experience into certain mechanisms. Memory is more than a memorial service, a carnation flower and a candle. Memory should be a strategy for personal and social transformation. To do this, we need values – articulated social mechanisms.

When a person understands why he is doing something, when he sees the value valence of what he is doing, the sence protects him from stress, from the development of post-traumatic stress disorder. It's right not just for the military service. This is actual for the country, for the people who experienced the Maidan and are experiencing the war. Values ​​are a matter of survival for us today. The task of education is limited not only to the knowledge-sharing function. In state policy, the task of education is to interpret reality. Education must interpret, science must acquire. When education begins to interpret, it offers us a shared collective value field. This is crucial for overcoming any disorders, asocial syndromes.

A person always needs a sense in order to overcome any disorder. In order to overcome internal chaos, we require value orientations. We need corrections – clear values, mechanisms of their articulation, ideals that will help us not lose our humanity," – said the military chaplain, teacher of the Ethics-Politics-Economics program, co-founder of the Ukrainian Academy of Leadership Fr. Andrii Zelinskyi.