The dramatic context of armed conflicts in Eastern Europe does not limit the commitment to the education of young people nor the determination to do it as a group rather than in isolation. The seventh online meeting since the Central and Eastern Europe and Middle East Hub was established in the Uniservitate programme took place in mid-April.
The host institution was the John Paul II University of Lublin (Poland), which ‘received’ the representatives from the coordinating institution of this Hub, the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt (KU), and the other two higher education institutions participating in the Hub, the University of Bethlehem (UB), in Palestine, and the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU). The vice-rectors of KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt and John Paul II University, María Rosa Tapia, Coordinator of Uniservitate, and Candelaria Ferrara, regional hub coordinator of the Programme, also participated in the meetings.
During a day of dialogue, each university shared the vicissitudes of the service-learning institutionalization processes in their institutions. During the morning, there was a rich exchange of experiences, suggestions, challenges and plans for the future. The afternoon session was devoted to research. Three Uniservitate grantees presented their current research projects, and UCU provided a report on the development of ‘ServU’, their joint research project, with the support of Erasmus+.
A proposal to create a joint online study programme for students from this and other regions was one of the initiatives discussed.