Svitlana Rerents, Deputy Head of Rudkivska Amalgamated Hromada, Lviv region

“My two biggest passions in life are my work and studying history. With the beginning of the local self-government reform, my work gave me a chance to realize my creative potential. I write projects. At first, I was writing projects for local development and in this way, step by step, our hromada started applying for the regional development fund projects, later we started to apply for international grants. That is how the hromada managed to win an international grant to install 19 household waste sorting stations around the entire town.

But my team and I have also started implementing our “history” project idea. We would like to show the tourist attractiveness of our area, the multicultural heritage of the town, where Polish, Jewish and Ukrainian people used to live together, and tell the stories of its renowned residents. It is here where the Polish poet Aleksander Fredro, Metropolitan Archbishop Andrey Sheptytskyi’s grandfather and Sofiya Yablonska-Uden, a photographer and traveler, once lived.

I hope that in the nearest future we will develop tourist routes and start welcoming more guests from Ukraine and other countries in our town.”