The first day included a visit to Illintsi municipality, where they learned about the functioning of the primary healthcare centre and the city hospital, which the municipality took over in 2021. Currently, the Illintsi city hospital provides medical care under 16 service packages and ensures emergency care for another 4 neighbouring municipalities.
Illintsi also has an interesting case study in their waste management and a processing line for certain waste types into paving slabs and curbs used in landscaping.
The next day, the visitors studied the experience of forming a capable educational network, establishing basic educational institutions and their branches in Nemyrivska municipality. Here, they put into practice the autonomy of educational institutions, including financial, personnel, organisational and academic. This allows each educational institution to develop in the chosen direction, and teachers to show their best, while providing students with a high level of quality education.
In Tulchyn municipality they learned about local social protection programmes for IDPs, defenders of Ukraine and their families, assistance to persons in crisis situations, and the social institutions network. The main goal here is to take care of every resident of the municipality.
“Providing quality services is one of the main areas of work for municipalities. Improving their quality and bringing them closer to the residents was one of the key tasks of the local self-government reform and power decentralisation. Having good infrastructure cannot solve all the problems alone. The main thing is to clearly understand the residents' needs, form a management team and respond promptly to the current challenges,” said Vitaliy Shvets, Head of the U-LEAD with Europe Programme's regional office in Vinnytsia Oblast.
In conclusion, the heads of municipalities visited the museum-apartment of Mykola Leontovych, the author of the world-famous Christmas melody “Shchedryk”, and the Leontovych Art Quarter project. They also went to the Potocki Palace, which hosts the OperaFest Tulchyn international opera music festival, bringing together performers of this genre even from outside Ukraine.
In summary, the visitors noted a number of interesting practices to implement in their municipalities. A participant from Kirovohrad Oblast was particularly interested in the organisation and management of healthcare services in Illintsi municipality:
“I was impressed by their organisation of the primary healthcare. It is relevant for our municipality, and we wish to implement this working principle at our place. In general, to see and communicate on site is much better than to call and ask questions. Thanks to the organisers, it was very useful. And once again, the things we have seen prove that people responsible for their work make all the decisions,” shared her impressions Liudmyla Prach, Head of Zavallia settlement.
Meanwhile, Iryna Pletniova, Head of Uman municipality in Cherkasy Oblast, was inspired by the experience of Illintsi residents in recycling and the social service practices of Tulchyn City Council.
“I was really impressed with the approach to landfill reconstruction and waste processing in Illintsi. We have a similar processing line, but it is privately owned and does not work. So I leave home planning to meet with the owners and raise the issue of its operation or cost. I learned a lot about social protection in Tulchyn municipality and already scheduled a meeting with the heads of the departments Such experience exchange visits are extremely useful, as it is interesting to communicate with people and take some of the best practices to implement at home,” she concluded.