The foundation of socioMovens
The fundamental initiative of our movement started in July 2012 in Arricia, near Rome, where 80 former participants of the social academy, a four-week summer school for future priests from Central- and Eastern Europe, reflected on how the fundamental idea of the social academy and the vision of ,,giving Europe a soul“ could further be promoted and thus become reality.
The congress took place under the motto: ,,For a culture of responsibility. The transforming power of the Gospel in today’s world.“ Giving young people a similar opportunity to make a community experience based on christian anthropology was the brainchild of the alumni-congress . Kommende Dortmund and its youth foundation beneVolens have a long tradition in working with young people and thus were able to assist the seminarians by providing pedagogical and methodical support.
These seminars were realized as four project weeks in the respective participants‘ home countries: at the beginning of 2013 the first project week took place near the latvian capital Riga. Other projects followed suit the same year in Slovakia (Spišská Kapitula ans Kysak) and in Romania (Timișoara): this marked the beginning of the pastoral commmitment in Central and Eastern Europe and of this youth -social movement. At the international congress “Giving Europe a Soul” in 2014 in Zakopane, Poland, socioMovens e.V. was officially founded as an international, youth-social network and movement. Since 2015 it was possible to widen the number of projects and countries.