Ukrainian Catholic University plays key role in war – and in healing

He urged the audience to “stop and feel the pulse of your neighbor. That’s right! Ask for a hand and feel the heartbeat of the person next to you. Just do it!”

“Be still and listen. Touch – with permission – and feel. Yes, even in people my age the throbbing is still there.

“Wow! Someone else’s life. A life to be respected and enriched, celebrated and protected. Imagine, friends, there are 8 billion beating hearts on this planet. Full of hope, promise, love and life.”

It is impossible to listen to Bishop Gudziak without being moved. This is especially true of the Notre Dame parish: they have joined forces with the UCU in their fight to save Ukraine one heart at a time.

On this April trip to Lviv, I was accompanied by three other American-Ukrainian activists. For a day, we were given a tour of campus by Professor Jeffrey Wills, one of UCU’s top staff. He and Gudziak are close friends and were classmates at Harvard. Wills supports UCU and nonprofit organizations in Ukraine.

“Visionary leaders focus on where the puck is going, not where it is now,” he said of his friend. “Part of Bishop Borys’ gift, then, is to speak prophetically in the days ahead, a voice that many students and Ukrainians in general need to hear.”

Wills arranged for our group to meet with the university’s top educators, including Rector Taras Dubko, who has worked at UCU for 20 years, and Orest Sulvado, the executive director of UCU’s Mental Health Institute. All three have made mental health and veterans’ issues a focus of the university.

The World Health Organization declared Ukraine a country of the Special Initiative on Mental Health in 2021. The organization estimates that at least 9.6 million people in Ukraine are currently at risk of or already living with mental illness.

Dubko stressed that more trained people are urgently needed to deal with this reality. He pointed out that in the 1930s there were 3,000 priests in what is now Ukraine. Today there are only 300. The UCU is currently training 30 priests in psychology, a big step for a religious institution. They know that priests need to understand the basics of psychology so that they can refer their parishioners/patients to mental health professionals.

At UCU, students suffering from depression due to stress can attend group therapy led by psychology students. Veterans can receive treatment free of charge. Students can also take part in meditation classes.

A study published in April by the International Blast Injury Research Network at the University of Southampton in England highlighted the mental health crisis, with findings describing high levels of PTSD and general anxiety among both refugees and displaced people within Ukraine.

At least 13 million people have been displaced from their homes since February 2022, says the report, which finds that the loss of community, housing and economic resources affects mental health. Researchers surveyed more than 8,000 participants – either refugees or internally displaced people in Ukraine. Nearly 8 in 10 respondents who remained in Ukraine reported exposure to explosions. More than half of refugees who fled the country reported exposure to explosives. Nearly 70% of all survey participants reported anxiety. People who stayed in Ukraine reported more severe anxiety and more frequent flashbacks.

The struggle to convince Ukrainians to seek out psychologists is shaped by the Soviet-era experience of using the psychiatric system against dissidents, fueling distrust of therapy among those who associate it with involuntary imprisonment.

The use of apps and internet technology is widespread in addressing mental health issues in Ukraine. For example, the BAZA app uses cognitive behavioral therapy methods to help veterans and civilians in Ukraine who feel unable or unwilling to undergo therapy.

Natalia Klymovska, UCU’s vice-rector, told me: “UCU is expanding its range of services to the community and paying more attention to healing war wounds through rehabilitation, occupational therapy and psychological support for veterans and war victims,” ​​she said. “We plan to train Ukrainian doctors to introduce them to the latest approaches and technologies in medical practice.”

Ukraine has a long way to go in helping its war veterans. The Ministry of Veterans Affairs has not been highly regarded by Ukrainians in the past. In February 2024, the head of the ministry resigned. Hopefully, new leadership will lead to improved performance.

The Ministry of Veterans Affairs estimated that the number of people eligible for veteran status after the war could rise from 1 million to 5 million by the end of the war. A survey commissioned by the Ukrainian Veterans Fund found that 52% of veterans surveyed required immediate medical care, while 63% reported health problems upon returning to civilian life. Most Ukrainian veterans receive a monthly payment of just $100.

The US GI Bill, which came into force after the Second World War, is considered a model for Ukraine.

Veterans organizations in the United States provide examples of how they use their influence to ensure that when veterans return home, their fellow countrymen are there to provide them with the services they need to ease their transition to civilian life.

U.S. veterans organizations such as the American Legion, Disabled American Veterans, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and Ukrainian American Veterans should be working with Ukrainian veterans organizations now. As a member of the Vietnam Veterans of America and Ukrainian American Veterans, I know now is the right time to make these connections.

Recently, Ukrainians Kateryna Odarchenko and Elena Davlikanova at the Kennan Institute in Washington DC wrote a report recommending the US model for Ukrainian veterans and their organizations. “The US Veterans Affairs system was chosen as a blueprint for Ukrainian reforms because of its comprehensive approach to veterans policy,” they wrote.

UCU is doing its part to raise awareness of the needs of returning veterans. Its volunteer centre provides logistical support to military hospitals and mobile medical units, and a medical clinic opened in May is preparing future doctors, occupational therapists and psychologists. UCU also recently opened the Office of Veterans and Families Affairs, and students are directly involved in providing care to soldiers and their families.

At Notre Dame, Bishop Gudziak urged the 2022 graduates to “truly know yourselves as you are. … Love the world person by person, heart by heart. Don’t be afraid.” A small group of UCU graduates did just that 10 years ago when they founded “the Platform.” What began with a handful of UCU graduates in Lviv has grown to 10 other centers across Ukraine – and serves as an umbrella organization for organizations to leverage their shared resources. The multi-agency Donor Coordination Platform now has over 200 staff.

And it has gained the support of religious organizations such as Caritas and similar organizations in the Dutch, Finnish and Danish churches.

Mariana Kashchak is the platform’s attentive and capable executive director. Since 2014, the organization has found shelter for 100,000 people displaced from their homes, implemented more than 670 projects to support orphans and children, and built more than 700 buildings for families affected by the Russian invasion, she said.

With the help of other donors from the business sector as well as from religious and government institutions, the platform is also preparing Ukraine for the time when reconstruction will be possible.

That time has not yet come. Ukraine has had an extremely difficult year. It has suffered painful losses due to significant delays in aid packages from the US and EU and a lack of replacements for fighters on the front lines. Their morale may be dampened but, as far as I have seen, it is not broken. From President Volodomyr Zelensky to the people on the front lines to the UCU students assembling aid packages for the soldiers in the basement bomb shelters, they can never be ignored.