Apples to Bangladesh, participatory budget... Success recipes from Chernivtsi Oblast’s hromadas

During the study visit of the delegations from AHs of the Poltava, Ternopil and Cherkasy Oblasts to Bukovyna (Chernivtsi Oblast), the local hromadas shared their successful experience in attracting and using money for hromadas’ development.

The event was initiated by the Chernivtsi Local Government Development Centre, established with the support of the U-LEAD with Europe Programme and MinRegion.

"On the first day, we visited the Velykokuchurivska AH, where an ASC has been recently launched. It issues biometric and foreign passports bringing additional revenue to the AH budget," said Tetyana Tatarchuk, Director of the Chernivtsi LGDC.

 

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After that, hromada representatives from three oblasts visited the Volokivska AH. The peculiarity of this hromada is that it includes two Romanian-speaking villages – Voloka and Hrushivka – and one Ukrainian-speaking – Valya Kuzmyn. The AH head says that this was not an obstacle to amalgamation. The hromada has a school with Ukrainian as a teaching language, and a school where they teach in Romanian.

 

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It is the successful collaboration with parents, businessmen, ordinary hromada residents that the AH management considers one of its main achievements, which makes it possible to build and repair schools, kindergartens, cultural institutions, etc.

 

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After visiting the Volokivska AH, delegations from three oblasts visited the Nedoboyivska hromada. It consists of four villages. Local residents are mainly involved in horticulture. The apple sorting line has been recently launched here.

 

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Local entrepreneur Vyacheslav Todosiychuk conducted an excursion around his complex for apple storage, sorting and packing. According to the owner, now the refrigerating chambers of his warehouse store six thousand tons of this year's apple harvest.

"We have recently bought in Poland and have launched an apple sorting line today. Our customer, who stores his apples in the chambers, needs apples to be sorted for new markets. He has an order for Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia,” said the entrepreneur.

 

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According to him, the new line sorts apples by 14 different parametres at once – by color, weight, shape, size, roundness, etc. The entire sorting process is automated – from washing apples to packing them into boxes. Human intervention is minimal.

In addition to entrepreneurial activity, this man is known in the village for his volunteer work. On his initiative and together with the AH leadership, they organised the first volunteer fire brigade.

 

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The leaders of the Nedoboyivska AH also told their colleagues about their first experience in implementing participatory budget.

 

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“We allowed participants from the age of 14 to submit projects. Voting could be exercised by residents from 7 years of age. The projects and amounts allocated to them were small, in fact, we have already implemented almost all of them,” said the financier of the Nedoboyivska AH.

In addition, the delegations visited the Vyzhnytska AH, which includes the district centre and the surrounding mountainous villages. The hromada leadership shared their successful experience of implementing tourist projects.

The full version is available in Ukrainian – please click HERE

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