Mariana Kashchak is a Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) graduate and Director of the Ukrainian Education Platform. She is also currently in the master’s program for public administration at UCU.

In 2010, Mariana Kashchak was in the first graduating class of UCU’s bachelor’s program in social pedagogy. She began working that same year at the Ukrainian Education Platform (UEP), a Ukrainian network of support that strengthens the capacity of the country’s regions with social initiatives, technologies, projects, and educational programs. The UEP, which had just five people on staff when she began there, has grown to more than 200 people (including many UCU alumni) and 500 partners serving all of Ukraine. Mariana has grown as well and now leads this extraordinary organization. She also continues her education in UCU’s Public Management and Administration program. 

The Work of the Ukrainian Education Platform

The UEP’s partners include large international organizations like UNICEF and a wide array of civic and local government organizations. UEP also supports the social ministries of many different churches: Catholic, Greek Catholic, Protestant and Ukrainian Orthodox. They help these churches with ecumenical programs that expand their social outreach and community support. The UEP is one of the very few organizations in Ukraine that work with both religious and civic organizations.

Through its partners, the UEP facilitates new projects and strategic planning both regionally and nationally in Ukraine. Their work touches many lives, assisting families in crisis, helping children and orphans, supporting mental health, bringing humanitarian relief, and providing programs specific to the frontline regions.

Compassion and Community

A hallmark of the UEP’s projects is their local engagement. As they venture into communities, they recruit and involve local individuals and organizations to help identify and address issues. The community comes together to create a common consensus, involvement and responsibility around all the projects. In this way, UEP facilitates the particular support a community may need.

Her own personal experience has given Mariana a powerful perspective on the complex needs of families going through loss and upheaval. Mariana is the mother of two daughters; her husband, Taras, who volunteered to join the territorial defense force two days after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, was killed fighting on the eastern front three months later. Her perseverance and vision have helped make the UEP uniquely helpful and responsive to the families and communities in crisis. 

UEP Projects

A sampling of the programs includes the Children’s Space program, one of the several projects in which UEP partners with UNICEF. Children’s Space creates safe spaces with child-friendly environments where children (adolescents, youth) can receive help following traumatic experiences through online education, non-formal education, or psychosocial work. Directors of local institutions like schools and libraries are some of the facilitators, as they understand clearly what the community needs, which families are in crisis, and how to help them. 

The Good Neighbor Program connects a family in crisis to an individual, a teacher, or a doctor, for example, or an organization that can answer their specific needs. The goal is to establish communication to keep families affected by the war from ending up in social isolation and difficult life circumstances, so the UEP helps find resources with the help of a volunteer(s) — a good neighbor. Currently in eight regions throughout Ukraine, Good Neighbor has served many families and focuses on creating social cohesion, enabling a community to understand and cope with its distinctive problems. 

The School of Responsible Ministry helps active parishes to scale up their projects and to reach beyond their parishes and into the community; Youth Friendly Parishes brings together active youth from Ukraine and the Netherlands, showing the Church as a platform for personal and spiritual development and creating an international Christian youth community.  

Balance of Your Ministry is a psychological program for church community leaders to help them respond to the current challenges of Ukrainian society. Come and See is a Christian formation program for young people that offers a transformative approach to their lives through spiritual enrichment.

The Mine Safety Program teaches children and their parents/guardians about the dangers of mines and the risks of unexploded ordnance and other explosive remnants of war. 

Mental Health is a joint project of the Ukrainian Educational Platform and the Student Chaplaincy Centre, combining psychology and spirituality. On Implementation of Comprehensive Social Service for Resilience Building, a state program, supports The Resilience Centre, a barrier-free, friendly space accessible to every community member to get expert advice, counselling and support. Psychosocial support centres in Dnipro and Petrykivka, Motanka2, are part of the Emergency Response Initiative to support the war-affected population in Ukraine and neighbouring countries. 

 WoWoman empowers socially active women to implement their ideas with educational reinforcement, mentoring, and funding for some projects. 

Conscious Citizenship is a principled approach that the UEP integrates into its educational program to develop behavioural change and thinking about conscious/active citizenship.

The UEP also has dozens of other projects, including many that support mental health and projects that serve families living close to the frontlines.

In addition to being the director of UEP, Mariana is now a professor at UCU, teaching project management for social workers, and she is a student at UCU as well, pursuing a master’s in public administration. UEP’s work so far has been heavily in the private or nonprofit sectors, but she believes that in the future, UEP may involve public sector projects as well. “I am trying to learn more about the public sector. We need improvement and understanding of that sector for Ukraine’s recovery.”

The Legacy of a UCU Education

“Other universities offer an education program. UCU offers you a style of life. It has been 20 years since I first came to UCU, and in all that time, I have used the values I got from UCU. They guide me, not only in my profession but in all decisions in my life: children, marriage, friends, everything. I received more than just an education. UCU gives their students a way of life – a strong plus when the world is so challenging. The difference is the values.”