From June 27 through July 7, 2024, the Catholic University of Croatia hosted the third summer school program focused on resilience and recovery. This year’s program was titled “Practicing Resilience – Preparing for Recovery” and welcomed students from the Catholic Universities Partnership (CUP) institutions, including the University of Notre Dame and Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU). This summer school program was organized jointly by the Nanovic Institute for European Studies in the Keough School of Global Affairs at Notre Dame, UCU, and Catholic University of Croatia, with support from a grant by the United States Council of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee on the Church in Central & Eastern Europe.

Morgan Munsen, senior research and partnerships program manager at the Nanovic Institute, and David Buckley, an advisory board member of the institute and managing director with General Atlantic, were among the instructors invited to this program.

The two students from Notre Dame attending the conference were Sergio Burneo ’27 and Helina Kassa ’25. The institute asked them to reflect on several questions about their experiences. Their responses are compiled in an interview format below.

Questions and responses from Notre Dame students

What was the most insightful lesson you learned about resilience and recovery from the CUP Summer School?

BURNEO: Perhaps the most striking aspect we explored in the process of overcoming trauma was the importance of connection with others, in particular those who underwent the same or similar experiences.

As such, when a community undergoes something like a war, one of the most important ways it can recover is through community-building exercises that ensure the group is able to move forward together. This truly highlights the importance of social connections as an essential part of our lives, an aspect that many of us can often overlook in favor of other responsibilities such as work that we may deem more important. Sometimes, this may involve connecting with surprisingly different and unique people that we previously could not have seen ourselves ever even talking to. This is somewhat representative of how I felt going into this trip, where I found myself surrounded by students from so many different countries from all across Eastern Europe; Croatia, Slovakia, Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, and Georgia.

KASSA: The most insightful lesson I learned from the resilience and recovery sessions at the CUP Summer Schools is the amount of patience it takes to recover from trauma and atrocities in the world. Resilience takes time to develop, and there is no numerical timeline you can hold someone to.

How was your experience interacting with university students from different countries? What did you take away from these interactions?

KASSA: My experience interacting with students from other countries was beautiful! I learned a lot from others around the world and made new friends and memories I will cherish forever. A big takeaway I got from interacting with people from different countries is to always be open-minded and listen to others.

BURNEO: Despite [sometimes] great differences, I found that we were all very much united in our circumstances in being on this trip, which was a great way for us to bond and bridge the gaps between our different cultures. This shared experience and the memories we shared paved the way for the formation of friendships that continue to survive. In these friendships, I met inspiring people who were eager to help bring about change in the world and their communities to create a better world, especially among the students from Ukraine, who had learned to adapt to the hardships brought about by the war to continue on with their lives as best as possible. These were also people eager to learn and embrace each others’ differences and cultures and seek to utilize them to broaden their perspectives and play to each other’s strengths in the work we had to do on our capstone project.

What is your favorite memory from your time in Šibenik?

KASSA: My favorite memory in Šibenik is working with my group to make a final presentation. It was a heartwarming experience working with students my age coming together to create a presentation that represented all of us that we were all proud of.

BURNEO: My favorite memory from this trip would definitely be exploring Šibenik itself. In particular, the historic Cathedral of St. James was absolutely stunning and incredible to explore, especially hearing about the history of the building and this city that has stood for nearly a thousand years and passed through so many different eras and rulers until it could finally be a part of modern independent Croatia. The food in the city was also delicious, and visiting the waterfront restaurants provided an absolutely stunning view of the Adriatic coast. All in all, I am very grateful for this amazing experience I was so fortunate to be given the opportunity to go on thanks to the Nanovic Institute, and I would definitely encourage others to take the chance to visit such a beautiful country and meet exciting new people!

Looking ahead to 2025

The Nanovic Institute and its partners in the CUP look forward to the next iteration of this program in the summer of 2025. Administrators from the Catholic University in Ružomberok felt that It was great for students to realize that there are other Catholic Universities in this part of Europe and that they can be strengthened by connections with other students. Likewise, leaders from UCU were pleased to see the program continue and noted that students continually enjoy and receive a great deal of value from it.

More information about the CUP, this year celebrating its 20th anniversary, may be read in a special feature story in the institute’s 2023-24 Year in Review.

Originally published by Sergio Burneo and Helina Kassa at nanovic.nd.edu on October 18, 2024.