Safety is the number one priority. With such an attitude, the municipality is ready to allocate not only budget funds but also to attract grants, and it has the motivation to approach security comprehensively.
The mountain municipality spent more than one year to reach its current understanding of a safe environment. They started by understanding the threats and how to prevent them. Then, it became a matter of technique and motivation, strategic vision, studying the experience of other municipalities, and developing their own approaches.
“Each leader strives to adopt the best practices. Our team is no exception — we search and implement. Security is now the key factor. We organised the work of the team, and distributed functions and tasks among officials systematically. We introduced a data collection system to monitor our progress toward the set goals,” said Roman Dmytriv, Mountain village head.
Representatives of the municipality shared their experience with their colleagues during the event “Development of infrastructure to ensure a safe environment based on the example of the Mountain city territorial municipality,” organised by the Kyiv Regional Office of the “U-LEAD with Europe” Program.
On one hand, the municipality invested in infrastructure and continues to do so in the future. On the other hand, it invested in the so-called “soft component,” building a system for residents to acquire skills, as well as providing training for local government specialists and employees of communal institutions.
Modern security infrastructure encompasses both technology and institutions.
In the Mountain municipality, a municipal guard is directly managed by the head of the Department of Civil Protection of the Population. Currently, the municipal guard consists of 8 people, with a team of 2 people on duty at all times. Unlike the police, the guard is stationed within the territorial municipality, enabling quick response to events. Employees undergo certified training, allowing them to be officially involved in firefighting. Additionally, the municipality established a headquarters to address emergency situations and fostered cooperation with the police. As a result, the number of offences decreased.
Another significant security measure is the video surveillance system, funded through the local target program “Safe municipality.” Presently, 139 cameras are installed across three settlements. The system has data exchange with the Bezpechna Kyivshchyna system. It is interesting that the video surveillance system is not only constant expenses. The municipality says it has its own “economic effect”: cameras record the violation, the municipal guard draws up an administrative report, the violator pays a fine, and thanks to this, the amount of costs for the liquidation of spontaneous landfills is reduced.
Moreover, the Security centre will start working in the Mountain municipality, for which the design and estimate documentation has already been developed and construction has begun. All services that are located on the territory of the municipality and are responsible for security will be united here. They also plan to launch a 911-style call centre.
Municipality safety begins with education
In the Mountain municipality, this principle is understood both as a safe educational environment and as the presence of basic skills of safe life activities among the residents of the municipality. For this, a risk-oriented approach to safety in educational institutions was introduced. Individual plans were developed for each educational institution, from kindergarten to school, and voluntary rescue and emergency teams were formed from the number of employees who are constantly undergoing training.
All this is supported by technological infrastructure — modern fire safety and alarm systems in buildings; alarm buttons guaranteeing the arrival of a special unit of the State guard within 7 minutes; internal video surveillance. The most urgent thing now is dual-use storage facilities in educational institutions, which are equipped with everything necessary and can be used for the educational process and as a civil defence shelter. One of these shelters was visited by the heads of municipalities of the Kyiv oblast in the Pre-school educational institution of the Mountain village council “Barvinok” as part of the exchange of experience.
The other side of the coin is education to ensure a safe environment or so-called “soft” infrastructure. For the smallest residents of the municipality, these are safety classes, for teenagers — safety camp, as well as a safety hub, which operates in the Revnenskyi Lyceum of the Mountain village council. The latter aims to form a safety culture, an understanding of actions if a specific dangerous situation arises. In addition, education workers have been trained in basic resuscitation measures, road, fire and mine safety, cyber security and safety of the working environment.
For the implementation of these projects, about 100 million hryvnias were spent from various sources. In addition to financing from the municipality budget, transfers from higher-level budgets, it was possible to attract grant funds within the framework of the Agreement of mayors, projects with the support of IOM and UNICEF.
“Using the example of the Mountain municipality, we had the opportunity to make sure that in the conditions of war, security should be a priority direction. The organisation of a safe space in kindergarten and educational programs on safety at school lay bricks in the minds of young Ukrainians. And the systematic and comprehensive work of the municipality leadership to create a safe environment allows every resident of the Mountain municipality to feel comfortable even when air alarms are announced,” Olena Ivanchenko, head of the Regional office of U-LEAD in the Kyiv oblast, summarised the presented experience.
