Vilnius Archdiocese (VA) Caritas

Vilnius Archdiocese (VA) Caritas - the organisation of the Roman Catholic Church, which engages and unites communities and persons of goodwill for social service and social justice in the territory of the VA (the Eastern part of Lithuania). VA Caritas goals are the following: 1. to activate, educate and engage church community with merciful love and social justice; 2. to respond in an actual and competent way to crises and social exclusion situations in the territory of the VA; 3. to coordinate charitable initiatives in VA; 4. to encourage society’s involvement in solving global social issues. Since 1989 VA Caritas has developed a regional network of various charitable activities. It unites 46 centres and programmes (95 professionals and 450 volunteers) and maintains the biggest social service network among the region’s NGOs. The founder of VA Caritas is Vilnius Archbishop. He hires a director to manage the organisation. The VA Caritas activities are managed in four forms: initiatives in the parishes, social support centres, the programs and administration: - The role of the initiatives in the parishes (25 in the VA) is to activate and engage parish communities in charitable work; to react to the local situations of poverty in a very concrete way. - The role of the social support centres (14 centres in Vilnius and one in Pabradė) is to competently provide help to people in need. - The role of the programs (8 in the archdiocese) is to spread the qualitative innovations in the system. All centres and activities mentioned above are supported by the central administration office of VA Caritas. There are 2 deputy directors. One is responsible for the management of the first field, another - for the second and third fields. There is a Strategic Committee that consists of 13 people: besides 5 persons from the Coordinating Council (see below), the other 8 are elected from each of the structural fields. This committee is responsible for strategic directions and development of the organisation. The strategy must be approved by the Vilnius Archbishop. The term of the Committee is 3 years. There is a Coordinating Council, which consists of 5 persons: director, 2 deputy directors, 2 persons responsible for personnel and for public relations/fundraising. The Council meets every week; meetings are open to everybody and meeting reports are available for everyone (via internal e-group). The Coordinating Council is responsible for everyday management issues. Each social support centre and the programme has one leader and a team of workers/volunteers. Following the principle of subsidiarity, the leader of the centre is responsible for the management and development of activities, identity, personnel, property, and fundraising. The responsible deputy and administration help the leader to manage it all in the way (s)he would be enabled to do it independently. VA Caritas is a founder of 3 other institutions: 1 foundation VA Caritas Social Projects, 2 public institutions - Vilnius All Saints Parish Temporary Care Home for Children, All Saints Family Support Center. The first was founded to develop Caritas social business initiatives: community cafe, candle factory, etc. The two public institutions have been started to help the parish to develop social services.