The Ivanivska AH, located near the city of Kalynivka, Vinnytsia Oblast, is dreaming to turn all four villages into “small Switzerland” – with comfortable living conditions for the residents, tourist features and favourable business environment. Here they have even created their own coat of arms and permeated it with sacred symbols that would contribute to prosperity and welfare.

The Ivanivska amalgamated hromada has been operating for only nine months – the first elections took place here just last October. More than 7.5 thousand people live in the newly formed AH.

“It's interesting that there was always competition between our villages, and even some hostility sometimes. It turned out that this fact did not hamper amalgamation, and hromadas only enriched and supplemented each other,” says Mykhailo Kulyk, head of the Ivanivska AH.

 

 

According to him, the AH started its work dealing with the roads – they managed to repair over 3 km of roads in villages in course of 9 months, investing in total about UAH 6 million.

 

 

The “Warm School – Good Scores” project won the oblast competition for the AH development, and now the windows at the Hushchyntsi school are being replaced at the expense of these funds. And in Ivanove, the building of the elementary school is under an overhaul.

 

 

They have already ordered new furniture, that will be installed in classrooms in early September.

 

 

The AH is also developing its healthcare sector: they have two outpatient clinics and two rural health posts.

 

 

However, the favourite achievement of the AH head is a sports town. Mr Kulyk is an athlete himself, he used to play football with children and youth, drove them to the rayon centre for trainings. Therefore, he decided that local children deserve decent conditions of on-site training. He worked with local entrepreneurs, and they decided to make an artificial-surface mini-football field with a sports playground for children and a park with a luxurious granite fountain in the centre of the village. The site will be opened on the occasion of the Independence Day.

“I am very proud of our people. It was enough to spread the word in Facebook that working hands were needed, and there came twice as many people as was necessary! Due to volunteers, we managed to save UAH 800 thousand!”, says Mr Kulyk.

 

 

However, he says that people move to work in Poland even from this powerful village. And many of them are young people. A particular reason for this is the closure of a local quarry, that used to employ 350 people.

In order to replenish the AH budget, they plan to continue working on attracting investors. In addition, they want to gradually deal with land plots outside the AH, which have already been officially transferred to the hromada’s ownership.

 

 

In addition, the AH plans to revive the Catholic church of the XVIII century in Ivanove, and to create a historic museum of local lore and the Ukrainian-Polish art centre in the building of the former monastery.

The hromada has also created its own coat of arms. A Spanish shield with heraldic figures is located on a green background, symbolising hope, freedom, abundance and joy. Below there is a wavy line with four hills symbolising four villages of the AH. The Southern Bug River, that flows through the hromada, is depicted above the straight line. In the very top there is a twelve-ray star that embodies the sun that once was a symbol of Podillya. A red cross, a symbol of the historic Kyiv and Bratslav regions, to which this territory belonged, is depicted on the star.

 

 

The AH leaders told that they enshrined not only evidence of hromada’s rich historical past, but also sacred content in the coat of arms – so that it became hromada’s talisman and its success programme. By the way, it has already been presented to European partners – for them to recognise the AH by its brand.

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