First Ladies, Gentlemen meet in Kyiv to create 'shared language of resilience' amid crisis

Ukraine's First Lady, Olena Zelenska, led the sixth Summit of First Ladies and Gentlemen in Kyiv on Aug. 24, focusing on creating an international "language of resilience" to help navigate global challenges.

The summit, established by Zelenska in 2021, featured first ladies and gentlemen from 14 countries, as well as other global leaders. The event was held as part of Ukraine's 35th Independence Day celebrations.

This year's summit introduced a Global Vocabulary of Resilience program, aiming to bring together concepts that different societies use to withstand crises. Such concepts included "civic volunteerism" from the U.S. and the British idiom "keep calm and carry on."

The Ukrainian concept of sophiynist, a philosophy of resilience that involves "the capacity to perceive reality with both mind and heart" and turn that understanding into action, was also highlighted.

"Coming in person, seeing, feeling, understanding — it is the fastest way to find an answer to a question I often hear: 'How do you Ukrainians endure this?'" Zelenska said in the opening of the summit about Ukrainian resilience during the war.

"This dissonance between war and life continuing is surprising only to those who have never been to Ukraine."

The vocabulary project is part of Zelenska's "How Are U?" mental health initiative, a program launched to address the war's impact on Ukrainians' mental wellbeing.

The different resilience frameworks have been compiled into a public online dictionary that allows users to search by country or concept. A print version of core vocabulary entries will also be published.

Attending the summit in person were Lithuanian First Lady Diana Nausediene, Estonian First Lady Sirje Karis, Finland's First Lady Suzanne Innes-Stubb, Serbian First Lady Tamara Vucic, Romanian First Lady Mirabela Gradinaru, and Slovenia's First Gentleman Ales Musar.

First ladies and gentlemen from Germany, Belize, Israel, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Guatemala, Georgia, and Panama joined the conference virtually.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, Estonian President Alar Karis, and Finnish President Alexander Stubb also spoke at the summit and shared their own language of resilience.

"The Estonian phenomenon of Tiigrihupe (tiger leap) proves that resilience can be built long before crisis hits," Karis said, celebrating the early adoption of digital technologies in Estonia.

Energy Minister and former Prime Minister  Denys Shmyhal also  lauded the resilience of Ukraine's energy infrastructure against Russian attacks.

"Our energy workers and engineers have created a unique engineering and technical protection, which helps to protect energy facilities even after the arrival of ballistic missiles," Shmyhal said. "Damage is repaired in a week, not in a month."

President Volodymyr Zelensky delivered the summit's closing address, speaking about finding stability in times of great crisis.

"All previous summits, and this one, of First Ladies and Gentlemen demonstrate that humanitarian diplomacy is not an addition to major politics, but one of its pillars," Zelenksy said. "And may this pillar of ours be strong and always resilient. May we be resilient. May Ukraine be strong – in our community with you."