U-LEAD held the final event of the training programme “Steps for Specialists. Interaction of Local Self-Government Bodies and Volunteer Associations”. The programme lasted from 31 May to 11 July 2023 in the format of online events such as seminars, trainings, workshops and info sessions.
For its implementation, U-LEAD partnered with the Ukrainian Voluntary Service, an NGO whose experts Anna Bondarenko and Olena Vuzka continuously worked with the participating municipalities.
“The training programme has come to an end. Today we are holding our final meeting where the participants of the initiative can share their experiences. It is important to hear their reflections on the knowledge and tools they learned and put into practice after the training. We must see how they assess their participation in the initiative and whether they were able to put the acquired knowledge to use. Each municipality has its own experience in developing volunteer spaces and cooperation with them, and each experience is equally important,” said Mykhailo Shelep, Advisor on Decentralisation and Local Self-Government at U-LEAD.
The experts stressed the importance of supporting volunteer movements in municipalities and talked about possible options for cooperation. According to them, local self-government bodies have all the necessary tools and mechanisms for the development of volunteer spaces, and they should be used.
“Today’s final event is in the dialogue format designed to create a high-quality communication platform for sharing experiences. Our main task was to improve the interaction between local self-government bodies and volunteer associations. A lot has already been done in the municipalities here, but their results need to be discussed and analysed,” said Olena Vuzka.
As an important part of the event, participants of the initiative presented the good practices that they managed to develop in order to support the volunteer movement.
In the Poromiv municipality of the Volyn region, the volunteer movement has been actively developing since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. Svitlana Vasyliuk, one other participant, spoke about it:
“We created a volunteer database. This database enables a better understanding of their needs and directions of their work: delivering products, providing cars or generators. This summer, we held many events. Among other things, every village held a charity fair. Our municipality is one of the smallest in Ukraine, but we were able to raise a considerable amount of donations for the volunteers. In addition, together with volunteers, we held a football tournament, charity races and other events in support of our soldiers.”
According to her, this training course was very useful and facilitated mastering effective tools of interaction with volunteers.
Daria Ratushniak from the Priyutivka municipality shared her experience:
“Participation in this programme gave us invaluable experience. Consultations and practical advice from experts helped us organise another volunteer centre where people gathered to make camouflage nets. This space is the result of the conducted research, which we were advised to do by experts of the initiative. We used communication tools to promote the initiative, and it paid off: people got together and started working together. The municipality held fairs, dialogues and other events, which helped raise funds to support our defenders. The training gave us an understanding of what tools of interaction between the authorities and volunteers should be used to establish communication and cooperation.”
According to Anna Bondarenko, the training programme’s expert, the municipalities participating in the initiative have already seen positive changes in the interaction of local self-government bodies and volunteer movements:
“Despite all the challenges, participants attended our events, organised their activities and mastered the tools provided to them in practice. Many thanks to them for trying, experimenting and implementing their ideas. The municipalities are already seeing changes; changes that can already be measured and felt,” she said.