All-Ukrainian Day of Human Responsibility Date in the current year: October 19, 2024

Bohdan Hawrylyshyn was a Canadian, Swiss and Ukrainian economist, benefactor, and advisor to large companies and governments worldwide. He was born on October 19, 1926 in Koropets (today, his home village is situated in Ternopil Oblast of Ukraine, but back then it was part of Poland).

After the end of World War II, having spent almost two years in a German camp for displaced persons, Hawrylyshyn emigrated to Canada, where he received an engineering degree from the University of Toronto. In 1960, he moved to Switzerland, where he started a career in education and was eventually received his Doctorate of Economics from the University of Geneva.

Hawrylyshyn returned to Ukraine in the late 1980s following the beginning of Perestroika. In 1990, he founded the International Management Institute in Kyiv, now known as the MIM-Kyiv Business School. After the proclamation of Ukraine’s independence Hawrylyshyn served as an advisor to several presidents, prime ministers and speakers of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

In 2010, Hawrylyshyn founded the Bohdan Hawrylyshyn Charitable Foundation tasked with raising a new generation of Ukrainians who would be able to adopt European experience and transform Ukraine. During the first two years of its existence, the foundation mainly provided grants. In 2012, it began to implement its own projects and programs such as, for example, Youth Will Change Ukraine, Creators of the Future, Architecture of the Country, Future Values, etc.

In 2014, during the Revolution of Dignity (a political and social crisis that resulted in the ousting of President Viktor Yanukovych), Hawrylyshyn wrote his Declaration of Human Responsibility, the fifteen items of which were intended to serve as signs showing a path to a more democratic, inclusive and efficient society in terms of humanistic values. Here is a concise version of the Declaration:

1. Tell the truth.
2. Stay healthy.
3. Learn and develop your talents.
4. Treat others the way you would like to be treated.
5. Be a free person.
6. Strive for harmony between your personal, professional and social life.
7. Do not limit the rights of other members of society.
8. Solve as many problems as you can.
9. Responsibilities to your family.
10. Parents’ responsibilities to their kids.
11. Responsibilities to the environment.
12. Responsibilities to your country.
13. Responsibilities to the future generations.
14. Responsibilities to the world.

In 2021, the Verkhovna Rada declared Hawrylyshyn’s birthday, October 19, as the All-Ukrainian Day of Human Responsibility. The idea of the holiday belonged to the Bohdan Hawrylyshyn Family Foundation, a charitable organization founded by Hawrylyshyn’s widow and children in 2017. The holiday is marked by events and activities that focus on the importance of encouraging individual responsibility of each member of society for its sustainable development.