Last month, our Ukrainian community in Australia witnessed two unprecedented philanthropic deeds. Both were the work of the same donors, who are well known for their generosity in support of Ukrainian life in Australia. However, this time, perhaps because of the extraordinary sums involved, the donations leave a sense that something fundamental may have changed for our Ukrainian community in Australia.
On Wednesday 25 June 2014, Victor and Mimi (Maria) Rudewych announced their donation of $1.52 million to the Ukrainian Studies Support Fund of the Association of Ukrainians in Victoria. The USSF is the granting body from which the Mykola Zerov Centre for Ukrainian Studies at Monash University has received much of its research funding in recent years. The donors hosted a celebration that evening to announce their intention to a small group of community representatives and representatives from Monash University.
Only days later, a second announcement was made. This time, Victor and Mimi announced that they would donate a total of $750,000 across three key projects to the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy. A celebration of that gift was hosted on Wednesday 2 July 2014.
In total, the Ukrainian community was the beneficiary of donations totalling $2.27 million. This is by far the largest philanthropic gift our community has seen.
Ukrainian Studies Support Fund Donation: $1.52 million
Scholarships
In an arrangement to be formalised in a memorandum of understanding, the donors have stipulated that $300,000 of their gift be earmarked to finance, over three years, up to four PhD scholarships in Ukrainian Studies or in interdisciplinary areas involving Ukrainian Studies.
A further $220,000 ($44,000 per annum) is to be reserved for an expansion of the existing Monash Rudewych Ukrainian Language Scholarships in the years 2015-2019. The Scholarships were initially established in 2008 to encourage school students in Australia to take Ukrainian language as a Year 12 subject. Up to 2014, 32 students have been recipients of this generous award. Provision was made last year to extend such encouragement to students from Year 7 onward. The current further expansion means that eight flagship Year 12 scholarships, valued at $2500 each, will be available for the duration of the present arrangement, while $24,000 per annum will be available for the scholarships in more junior years. The scholarships in total for 2015-19 will therefore stand as follows:
- 16 scholarships in year 7 at $100 each
- 16 scholarships in year 8 – $200 each
- 16 scholarships year 9 – $300 each
- 16 scholarships in year 10 – $400 each
- 16 scholarships in year 11 – $500 each
- Up to 8 grants per year for year 12 at $2,500 each.
In accordance with the vision of Victor and Maria Rudewych, the additional $220,000 provided under the present grant to fund scholarships across years 7 to 11 will create real incentives for would be students of Ukrainian, and ensure not only a sufficient number of students reach year 12 to satisfy simple accreditation needs, but perhaps even generate real competition amongst a field of quality candidates for the prized year 12 scholarships.
Signalling the Importance of Languages and Cultures
The donation more than doubles the USSF’s financial base and increases its ability to provide continuing support for Monash activities in Ukrainian Studies.
At the celebration of the donation on 25 June 2014 the Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Associate Professor Peter Howard, and Associate Professor Rita Wilson, Head of the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics, emphasised the longstanding and mutually beneficial relationship between the Ukrainian community and Monash University and welcomed the donation of Victor and Maria Rudewych not only as a contribution to the welfare of Ukrainian Studies at the University, but as a signal to the University as a whole and the Australian community at large of the importance of languages and cultures, and the value of teaching and researching them.
A Tradition of Philanthropy
Professor Marko Pavlyshyn, Director of the Mykola Zerov Centre for Ukrainian Studies, sketched the distinguished history of the benefactions of Victor and Maria Rudewych. Beneficiaries of their generosity include the Association of Ukrainians in Victoria, the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Australia, New Zealand and Oceania, the Ukrainian Youth Association (SUM), and the two Ukrainian community newspapers in Australia Church and Life and The Free Thought.
Mimivic Nominees, the company that Victor Rudewych and Maria Rudewych started in 1981 and jointly built up, is a successful industrial development enterprise with the construction of 36 industrial facilities to its credit. Most are in Melbourne, others are in Queensland, South Australia and regional Victoria.
On numerous occasions Victor Rudewych has donated his time and professional expertise to Ukrainian community projects. Two that are of special importance are the construction of the headquarters of Dnister Ukrainian Credit Cooperative Ltd., for which he was planning and building coordinator, and the development and establishment of the Ukrainian Elderly People’s Home, where Victor Rudewych’s input included finding and securing the land, negotiating for government funding, project managing the construction, and serving as Vice President for more than two years until the Home became a self-supporting concern.
Among the leaders of the Ukrainian community present at the celebration on the 25 June who lauded the magnanimity of Victor and Maria Rudewych were Mr Stefan Romaniw OAM, president of the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations, Mr Michael Moravski, president of the Association of Ukrainians in Victoria, and Ms Orysia Stefyn, president of the Ukrainian Education Council of Australia, the peak body for Ukrainian Saturday schools.
The focal point of the evening was the presentation of a cheque for the full amount of the donation to the chairperson of the Ukrainian Studies Support Fund Mr Marko Misko.
Donation to the Church
A similar occasion saw a similar cheque – this time for $750,000 – handed over by Victor and Mimi Rudewych to Bishop Peter, only a week later. Victor and Mimi invited a number of church and community representatives to a dinner function on Wednesday 2 July 2014 to celebrate the event and to discuss its details and its significance. Guests included Maria Vanderwerf and Teklia Jaworsky, representing the Met. Andrij Sheptytsky Ukrainian School in North Melbourne, Michael Laba, Andrew Pawuk, Olga and Eugene Hawryszko and Stefan Romaniw OAM from the Parish council, the parish priest, Fr Andriy Mykytiuk, Fr Olexander Kenez and Bishop Peter; this newspaper’s editors were also fortunate to be included. The evening was in itself a testament to Victor and Maria’s generosity – a sumptuous banquet in the company of a dedicated group of Ukrainian community representatives and their hosts.
A Saturday morning phone call
Very early into proceedings Bishop Peter called for attention and announced to those assembled what we had gathered to celebrate. He described in some detail how Victor and Maria announced to him their intention, and what that intention was. He described how Victor phoned him one Saturday morning and asked him straight out if the church had any needs he could name. The Bishop spoke of parish debt, a leaking roof, engagement with youth, the cultural and physical needs of the community. By the end of the conversation, a plan had formed that would soon turn into an agreement whereby Victor and Mimi Rudewych would donate the total figure of $750,000 to fund three distinct projects.
While the details of the donation were still to be documented in the memorandum of understanding, the aims of the donation were clear.
$400,000 was to be donated to the Bishop Ivan Prasko Memorial fund as seed money to commence a project for the construction of new premises for the North Melbourne Ukrainian school and a new, purpose-built, Ivan Prasko Memorial Museum. The project itself will cost considerably more; major fundraising will be commenced in the near future.
A further $200,000 was dedicated to fund Victor’s vision for youth empowerment in the community. According to the plan, each parish would be invited to create youth councils of about 5 people each, aged 16-30. These councils would become a focal point for youth activity in our church communities. They would be self-directed and, according to a detailed memorandum of understanding that would be developed, they would be free to input into many spheres of church life. The money would seed their operations – about $12,000 across each of 13 councils over three years for them to spend as the young people choose themselves.
Finally, a total of $150,000 was to pay for critical repairs to the cathedral roof.
Bishop Peter concluded his introduction to the evening by saying that this remarkable act of generosity and vision is what we had gathered to celebrate, discuss and debate.
We are accountable
Andrew Pawuk is the Eparchy’s legal adviser and has been involved in the preparation of the memoranda of understanding with Victor Rudewych relating to the donations. He had travelled down from Sydney for the evening to take part in the Wednesday night event. When he spoke next, he introduced an idea that had some resonance for all who attended the celebration. Andrew cited words spoken by our Patriarch-emeritus Lubomyr Cardinal Husar during his visit to Australia, some years ago now:
“We are no longer a migrant church… We no longer make it up as we go. We are here and we are accountable.”
The Patriarch’s message, Andrew pointed out, was Victor and Maria’s message too – the message of their gift to the Church. Like their peers and their children, they grew up in Australia. They were formed by Australia’s Ukrainian community. They worked hard in their industrial development business and it brought them great success. What is noteworthy, however, is that their success in business in Australia has not shifted their commitment to their community and their church.
This extraordinary donation, in that sense, is simply a continuation of Victor and Mimi’s many years of work, supporting and building the Ukrainian Australian community both financially and in a practical way on many projects and tasks. Their church and their community have always been a present need and future concern.
However, on the other hand, it’s hard not to be tempted to think that a gift of this magnitude, let alone one coupled with a $1.52m gift to Ukrainian studies in Australia at Monash University, goes beyond generosity “as usual” for Victor and Mimi, and for our community.
Stefan Romaniw – in many ways our preeminent community elder – got up to speak after Andrew on behalf of the Parish, and his thoughts strongly echoed those of Andrew. For Stefan, it is not only the extraordinary generosity that should be celebrated, but it is Maria and Victor’s priorities that are important and deserve acknowledgement. Their two unprecedented donations are quite specific in their targets: Ukrainian education and the Ukrainian church in Australia; these pillars are not monuments to the past, but foundations for the future.
Stefan went on to say that this donation should serve as an example to others of what commitment and vision can achieve – and this vision should be embraced in the community as an example for us all. Our community’s future viability, in Stefan’s view, faces serious existential threats. This extraordinary donation may have “stemmed the flow of blood” – it may in fact do much more – but it calls on all of us to do justice to its vision – a vision of the Ukrainian Australian community as a living and breathing part of our Australian future.
Stefan illustrated the task at hand by pointing out that, in Victoria, Ukrainian was one of 47 languages accredited for VCE (Year 12), but nevertheless, it required yearly vigilance and effort on the part of the community to find the 15 students a year to maintain that accreditation. The expansion of the Rudewych Ukrainian studies scholarships now creates an incentive that could generate a thriving student base once more, provided that the community as a whole supports the initative by understanding and advocating the value of studying Ukrainian in Australia far and wide. (It’s worth noting that on current attendance figures in Ukrainian schools, as of next year, the expanded scholarships would ensure that one in four students across the country obtained a Rudewych scholarship in some form!)
Stefan noted that in some ways Victor and Maria’s initiatives would find fertile soil already. In terms of their aims to empower youth, in some parts of the country their plans for youth councils would find groups already formed, or eager to form. In Melbourne, for example, a proto version of a youth council already exists in the youth community headed by Lesia Rudewych.
Finally, Stefan pointed out that this donation is important not only in its subject matter and its extraordinary size but also in its example for others to follow suit. Perhaps it is in this sense that these two unprecedented donations may have transcended all of the previous financial support and work contributed by Victor and Maria. These donations are a powerful example for the many of us who have found fortune in this great country and who recognise the intrinsic value of our community and our church here; a value that goes beyond mere nostalgia or sentiment.
When Victor Rudewych finally spoke later in the evening, his first statement, which came with some emotion, was to say how “magnificent it was” to be in the company of the other people at the table, whom he acknowledged as important, active members of the Ukrainian community. He went on to reiterate the elements of the discussion he had with Bishop Peter, his vision, and the plan that would form from it. Talking about young people, he cautioned that there is a real need not to patronise them. The best results will come, he said, when young people are entrusted. He stated that he and Maria wished to see some of the results of their donation while they were alive. They were not interested in merely granting seed money to generate interest alone. They wanted their donation spent on building our community and our church.
Finally, Victor said, he and Mimi thanked God they had the good fortune to be able to help in this way.
We, a grateful Ukrainian Australian community, devote our prayers of thanks to God for them too. Mnohaya Lita!
