This year’s week-long event lasted from October 5-11. The main theme of the event was Social Responsibility. It was a gathering of well-known Ukrainian and foreign politicians, leading religious figures, and workers in the social sector. Among the famous guests at the event were the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the International Charitable Fund Ukraine 3000, Kateryna Yushchenko; the Vice-President of the Social Weeks of France, Bernard Chenevez; the Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany in Ukraine, Hans-Jürgen Heimsoeth; the General Secretary of the Commission of Episcopal Conferences of the European Union, Fr. Piotr Mazurkiewicz; the Ex-President of the Commission of Episcopal Conferences of the European Community, Josef Homeyer, the member of the Supervisory Board of the RENOVABIS foundation, vice-president of the Central Committee of the German Catholics (ZdK) Magdalena Bogner, the Protestant pastor Heleen Zorgdrager (Kerk in Actie) and others.
“We have great expectations for the ESW. This initiative will go forward from Lviv. We need to learn to be responsible for those around us. This is the message of this Week – Social Responsibility,” said Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi during his speech at the opening ceremony. This opinion was also supported by Kateryna Yushchenko. She is convinced that the ESW needs to become a Ukraine-wide event, at which representatives of social organizations from throughout the country could gather. This year, several German partners took an active role in organizing the ESW: Renovabis, the Robert Schumann Foundation, and the Evangelical Church of Germany.