Lviv enters finals of European Volunteering Capital 2024 competition

Lviv made it to the finals of European Volunteering Capital 2024 competition. The Italian city of Trento is the second finalist. The application from Lviv was submitted by the active youth of the city together with TVORY! (Create) network of youth spaces. Andriy Moskalenko, First Deputy Mayor of Lviv and a participant in Lviv’s presentation at the competition spoke about it at a briefing at Media Center Ukraine.

“Lviv entered the finals of two major European competitions. The first is for the right to become the volunteering capital of Europe in 2024, and Lviv is also in the finals for the right to be the youth capital in 2025. But we are talking about the volunteering capital (competition), and 2 days ago a very important event took place in Gdansk. Lviv became the first Ukrainian city to make it to the finals for the first time… We all know thousands, millions of cases of how many Ukrainians help the military and help the state in this battle through volunteering. It is very important for us today to use every international platform in order to convey the truth. On the other hand, it also opens up the opportunity to participate in various foundations that can support the public sector,” — Andriy Moskalenko said.

According to the CEO of Ukrainian Centre for Volunteering NGO and a participant in Lviv’s presentation at the contest, the purpose of participating in the city competition was to demonstrate the level of Ukrainian volunteering during the all-out war and, at the same time, to gain experience from European volunteers.

“It is important to understand that such events as we have now give us the opportunity to show that our volunteering is different, but at the same time no less important. And to introduce the Europeans to it, actually, to make our volunteering more understandable for them and to show that, at the same time, we still do many great and important things and, in fact, to draw them a little into our bubble of existence. And what, in reality, seems to me as a key point, to provide Ukraine with a better understanding of how European volunteering works in systemic and institutional terms, and to show the Europeans how ours works as well,” — Maksym Turkevych CEO of Ukrainian Centre for Volunteering NGO and a participant in Lviv’s presentation at the competition said.

The winning city of European Volunteering Capital 2024 competition will be announced on December 10.

Read more: https://mediacenter.org.ua/news