The Chernyakhiv Village Council unanimously (17 votes in favour) agreed on voluntary amalgamation around the town of Chernyakhiv. This is the start of the amalgamation process in the rayon. Currently, the invitation to establish an AH will be sent to all village and town councils of the rayon that are not yet amalgamated.

“There are 11 villages in the rayon with a population of less than 100 people, in addition, there are 4 village councils with total population not reaching even 500 people. Can these hromadas evolve and provide high-quality public services? The answer is understood to everyone. Establishment of an AH will allow to improve the quality of these services and move from maintaining the infrastructure to its development,” said Mykola Zhylinskyi, head of the Chernyakhiv Rayon State Administration, at the session of the village council.

Currently, there are already two hromadas in the rayon – the Vysokivska and Vilska AHs, uniting 7 village councils. The next step should be the decision of the village and rural settlement councils to give consent to amalgamate with the centre in Chernyakhiv. The team of the Zhytomyr Local Government Development Centre, established with the support of the U-LEAD with Europe Programme and MinRegion, was persuading the rural settlement deputies and leaders to accelerate the process, as the hroamda loses time and financial resources provided by the state.

“The Vysokivska AH is already far ahead of all other villages in the rayon. They have schools, kindergartens and rural health posts renovated. They develop business and are already thinking about new working places, and not where to take money to provide a school with firewood. By creating an AH, you will receive the same development conditions and you will be able to work on the development of your potential”, said Vasyl Nevmerzhytskyi, director of the Zhytomyr LGDC.

It is worth mentioning that elections in AHs are to be held in April and October 2018.