Summer Pro-Life Academy 2024

The pro-life workshops in Krakow, organized as part of the Pro-Life summertime Academy, combined with a popular discipline conference, ended. They lasted from 25 June to 2 July 2024. Local pro-life leaders who wanted to deepen their bioethical cognition and learn pro-life arguments participated. This year the Academy was divided into 2 grades for the first time. The first was attended by people who first enrolled in pro-life workshops, in the second the leaders who had already been to 1 of the erstwhile Academy.

– Life must be defended wisely. Not to halt on emotion, but to talk on argument. These are best tested in practice, which is why the Pro-Life summertime Academy is simply a workshop – says Marcin Nowak, coordinator of the Pro-Life summertime Academy organized by the Polish Human Life Defenders Association and the Polish Teachers and Educators Association.

Every day during the summertime Pro-Life Academy lectures, workshops and meetings with interesting guests were held. – The basis of the Pro-Life summertime Academy is workshops. We work utilizing activating methods that make creativity and critical reasoning skills, broaden our position and deepen communication – she says Magdalena Guziak-Nowak, manager of Education of the Polish Association of Defenders of Human Life. Local pro-life leaders learned to actively perceive and talk to those who have different views – always with respect for another man to build a affirmative pro-life message and delight others with the beauty of life. They besides attended a popular discipline conference.

See the study on last year's edition and comments of the participants:

This year the participants discussed with the workshops' leaders, among others, about building permanent attitudes “for life” through affirmative education and in vitro and hormonal contraception. They gained cognition of abortion and alleged emergency contraception in the context of the announced legal changes. They looked at the problem of media manipulation and verified pro-abortion arguments.

Among the invited guests who met with participants were professionals in their fields, among others: dr n. med. Dorota Łucja Jarczewska – a specialist in household medicine, author of technological studies on hormonal contraception and fetal cell lines; Dr. Jolanta Prochniewicz – a scientist and theologian, provides guidance for parents of children declaring homosexual tendencies; Dr. Krzysztof Niewiadowski OFMCap – a spiritual guardian of the Academy, a doctor of moral theology, has been active in the defence of human life for many years; Dr. Piotr Guzdek – a familologist, a specialist in helping parents after the failure of their child, a composer about burials of lost children.

The experience of erstwhile editions shows that participation in the Academy may be a large chance to establish a relation with people with akin views from all over Poland. This is how Sandra Wcisło, a associate in the 2022 edition, described her experience with the Pro-Life summertime Academy: "Despite the large fascination with defending human life and the large joy of taking the first steps on this road, I had many doubts. The pro-life subject was not received positively in my surroundings – both home and school. I'm a fifth-year med student. Unfortunately, in this environment we frequently talk about so-called. «Women's rights», o «free selection», while fewer people are full aware that choice ends where the another person's injury begins. I was alone with all this, I needed community. I saw an announcement about the Pro-Life summertime Academy on Facebook and I signed up right away. I wondered what it would be like, I didn't know anyone. Nevertheless, I dared and set off.”

Concerning the last year’s Academy, Alexander Morozowicz said: “Summer Pro-Life Academy is the perfect proposal for individual who wants to aid others, to find out how specifically he can aid and who wants to transcend himself to any extent. We're gaining knowledge, but I besides think we're going to have seeds here that we don't want to stay with, but we're going to want to carry on. We will feel the mission that what we have here must be given to individual else.”

– We request meetings that add courage, unite our environment and aid build fresh contacts and relationships. We request to know how we can work effectively where we live – in our town, work environment or parish – says Marcin Nowak, coordinator of the Academy.

The workshops were co-financed by the Polish Life Defenders Association, which is the organizer of the event. The co-organizer of the Academy was the Polish Association of Teachers and Educators.