Experience Sharing Network “Creating a Plan for Communication of Changes in the Municipality” had its final event. The Network brought together representatives of 48 municipalities from all over Ukraine who received comprehensive communication training. For the implementation of this initiative, U-LEAD with Europe partnered with Internews-Ukraine, an NGO whose experts conducted educational events and provided individual consultations for municipal professionals.
The final event was held at the Regional Office of U-LEAD in the Lviv Oblast. It summed up the outcomes of the Network and presented the results of the participating municipalities.
“We are summing up the efforts that we started together with colleagues and representatives of municipalities at the end of March 2023, when the first workshop within the Network was held. During this time, the representatives of municipalities completed an accelerated course on strategic communication. Together with experts, the participants of the Network worked on plans for communication of changes from various directions, which they implemented in their municipalities. A tremendous amount of work was done so that representatives of the municipalities received the necessary knowledge and skills to establish high-quality communication at the level of their municipalities,” said Halyna Khrushchak, Head of this Regional Office.
The participants of the Network attended 3 seminars and 4 trainings, where they learned about the concept of communications, approaches to establishing internal and external communication in local self-government bodies, crisis communication and more. The experts also provided individual consultations for Network participants on developing their own communication plans to accompany the implementation of changes.
“We worked on communication plans for each municipality and analysed a lot of raw data, but we were all united by the understanding that communication is important, especially when it comes to certain changes and innovations. We had many hours of seminars, trainings, and consultations where we shared with the participants our own knowledge and expertise on certain communication issues. Now it is important to learn the stories of the participating municipalities, to hear their experiences, which may be important for others. Municipalities now have many of the same challenges and problems, which should be shared in order to find a joint effective solution,” said Diana Ishchenko, Creative Director of Internews-Ukraine.
Representatives of municipalities that joined the initiative talked about their own cases of implementation of communication changes, including a presentation of the application of certain communication approaches and tools in practice, in particular in wartime.
“Thanks to this training, there was a movement in our municipality in the direction of improving communication with the public on various issues. We saw that basic communication tools, including working with negative feedback, ensure getting feedback from the people living in the municipality residents on certain issues, their advice, recommendations, or wishes. The training provided an understanding that our resources must be updated regularly. We have not yet managed to communicate with every target audience we planned, but we are working on it. U-LEAD experts helped us systematise communication processes and get our priorities straight,” Iryna Tymoshchuk, deputy head of the Klevan municipality, said, sharing her thoughts on the training.
Lilia Kalashnikova, deputy head of the Dymerka municipality, spoke about the communication plan for working with IDPs, which was developed as part of the programme. According to her, in their case, it was important to develop an effective algorithm of actions for the integration of internally displaced persons into the community. The Dymerka municipality has identified several priority areas of work, including restoration of damaged houses and social protection of vulnerable groups of people, including IDPs, whose number has been constantly increasing.
“Correct communication with IDPs played a key role in establishing contact with them. We have introduced appropriate support programmes for IDPs and created special channels for prompt outreach and sharing information with them. For this purpose, we have created a separate page on social media and a separate section on the website where all important information for IDPs is posted,” Lilia Kalashnikova added.
In general, experts helped municipalities develop plans for communication of changes in various areas, including education, waste management, landscaping, local development, youth policy, culture, integration of IDPs, strengthening civil society and other issues.