EVENT

Starting on December 13, 700 Saint Nicholas’ helpers will pack toys, sweets, stationery, and children’s books that will be brought to destitute children in Lviv on December 19, St. Nicholas Day. The “factory” will work until December 17 at the Lviv Palace of Arts as part of the charity action “Nicholas will not forget about you.” “Our volunteers are high school and university students,” the factory’s organizer Olena Yaremko told The Day. “All of them, despite the examination session, selflessly give their time to help St. Nicholas to come directly to children’s homes. The volunteers are working very intensively, because St. Nicholas’s Day is approaching fast, and it depends on all of us whether belief in miracles and goodness survives in the hearts of Lviv’s youth.” The organizers of the event also appealed to all residents and guests of the city, asking them to join the event and help bring joy, happiness and smiles to those in genuine need of them. 

Ukraine lacks 46,000 doctors and 20,000 junior medical specialists, UNIAN reports, citing the Chairwoman of the Healthcare Workers’ Trade Union Viktoria Koval, who stressed that her profession experiences significant personnel shortages because of low wages and low social security levels. “Every year, the healthcare system of Ukraine is losing more than 6,000 doctors. Doctors are leaving for other sectors of the economy and emigrating to neighboring countries. The recruitment of young people is problematic, too, with 40 percent of employees are beyond retirement age,” Koval declared. According to her statements, the personnel situation in rural areas is even more difficult, as there are medical facilities there “in which no position is occupied by a doctor.” “Lack of housing, adequate infrastructure, problems with the realization of rights and guarantees for physicians and pharmacists are the main causes for the staffing crisis in the countryside,” Koval said. In her opinion, these problems might be solved through funding healthcare in rural areas out of district budgets, as provided for in the new version of the Budget Code of Ukraine. 

The initiative to create the library belongs to Oleh Ivaniv, youth representative of the Ukrainian diaspora in Athens, while the implementation of the project is the work of the counselor of the Ukrainian embassy in Greece Illia Oliinyk, the poet and social activist Roman Lubkivsky, the art scholar Khrystyna Berehovska (the latter two are from Lviv), and the Ancient Halych Preserve Director (Halych, Ivano-Frankivsk oblast) Oleksandr Berehovsky.

The books brought to Athens include Ukrainian classics, Ukrainian history publications (for children and adults alike), works by and about Antonych, and art literature. Sviatoslav Hordynsky’s Worlds, authored by Lviv art photographer Vasyl Pylypiuk, Roman Lubkivsky and Khrystyna Berehovska, was presented in Athens, too. This outstanding artist, critic and publicist lived for a long time in Crete and wrote several poems on Greek topics. In total, 350 books were brought from Ukraine. They were purchased by the project’s organizers at their own expense, with transportation paid for by the Ukrainian Association of Greece “Crane Land,” which has about 7,000 members and is headed by Kateryna Kuchirko.

The Library will function at the Ukrainian Community Center’s premises in Athens. The presentation of the library took place in the Cultural Center at the Embassy of Ukraine in Greece.

“A day earlier, we met with the Ukrainian diaspora,” Berehovska told The Day. “They asked us mostly about social topics: children’s education, Ukrainian higher schools’ entrance requirements, because parents dream to send their children to Ukraine for their studies. People want to return home, but they’re afraid, for after years of staying abroad they are detached from Ukrainian society.” In Athens, there are many former residents of Lviv — university professors, doctors, historians, archaeologists — who went to Greece over 20 years ago and also dream of a speedy return home. The art scholar is happy with having been acquainted with many young immigrants and has even made plans for further cooperation with them. One of these plans concerns the transfer of an icon from Athos to the Lord’s Transfiguration Greek-Catholic Church (Berezhany, Ternopil region). It is already determined that the solemn ceremony of donating the Virgin and Christ holy image will take place at Christmas time. The next trip to Athens is planned for March, and will coincide with Shevchenko’s birthday. This time, Greece will see Shevchenko-themed works by Yevhen Beznisko, an artist from Lviv.