Organizers: Ukraine’s Future Summit is a site for open discussion of pressing issues and challenges in Ukrainian present-day life with all the stakeholders

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Kyiv, October 19, 2015. Summit ‘The future of Ukraine’ will take place in Odesa on October 20-22 and in Kyiv on October 24-30. According to Max and Ellen Schupbach, founders at Global Leadership Deep Democracy Institute and the Summit organizers, the main goal of this event is to create a site for open discussion of pressing issues and challenges of Ukrainian present-day life with participation of all the stakeholders. ‘Deep Democracy’ is an approach and a social technology that works on the idea that in order to create sustainable solutions in a complex world you need not so much – only cause analysis and mechanical approach to fix in problems. But you need approaches that can help to discover the connection between the numerous stakeholders that are involved in a process,” explained Max Schupbach at a press briefing at Ukraine Crisis Media Center.  “What politicians decide together is obviously crucial. But one of the reasons why these agreements are frequently not applied is that they don’t include people, because in doesn’t deal with hate, anger and fury of all parties involved. One of the goals is to bring all those voices that are usually not heard so that they could interact with each other. […] Our contribution is focus on involving various partners to have a dialog more often and hold more conversations with each other. This way the solutions found are supported by everybody involved and not just by a few.

According to the organizers, the Summit will unite a number of participants from various social groups: representatives of the government, National Academy of Social Administration at the Presidential Administration of Ukraine, future facilitators and community leaders. “Social forums are intended to become a platform open for everyone. We act as facilitators at forums which have no strict rules and everyone can express themselves,” said Max Schupbach.

“We will have three days in Odessa and then come back to Kyiv. We will have training on facilitation and also summit days devoted particularly to the hot topics relevant for Ukraine right now,” said Yuliya Filippovska, director at the Deep Democracy Institute Ukraine. “On the first day we would like to focus on families separated by the crisis [revolution, annexation of Crimea, war]. As you of course know, in Ukraine, over centuries separation in families caused many difficulties,” said Ellen Schupbach. “On the second day we’d like to focus on various nations, regions, cities, country, language, education and how these things are interrelated.”

On the third day, she said, we will focus on the East – West relationships and interaction between them, historic reconciliation and rethinking of the history. “We will hold open discussions in big groups, and in the afternoon we will work in small groups where people will be able to discuss these topics in depth,” explained Mrs. Schupbach. Besides, the program includes a workshop on facilitation and coaching in deep democracy style to facilitate the dialogue between various stakeholders.