On March 12, 2021, the U-LEAD with Europe Program held a special event – an online study visit to the Trostyanets community of Sumy region, which was attended by more than 130 community representatives from all over Ukraine. Study visits and exchange of experience are what participants of past U-LEAD with Europe Program events most often mention. The situation with quarantine restrictions during the pandemic has made adjustments to our plans, but we cannot wait any longer to return to
“normal” life.
The new normal is a combination of online and offline formats during any event. We tried to convey to the leaders of other communities in Ukraine the “emotion” – the mood of the community head and his team, which was able to implement successful changes.
This is the first in a series of online visits to the most successful communities in the country, which will allow you to look at local self-government from a different perspective; will demonstrate to the entire country motivated management teams on the ground, areas of development that were “killed” yesterday, but turned out that they can be quickly changed; will set a bar of ambition to which everyone else should strive.
And most importantly, decentralization is a successful reform that at this stage requires updating goals and objectives, and moving to the next stage of implementation.
We will demonstrate that changes do not depend on size or geography, but only on the will and courage of people.
Moreover, changes are possible in various areas, even in traditionally “difficult” ones for the country (medicine, security, public works), which even the central government is afraid to solve. And local self-government and its individual teams on the ground have become not just beneficiaries of the government’s decentralization reform, but are already creating a new culture and standards of governance that have never existed in the country before. This is a unique historical moment of the country’s transformation in real time.
Trostyanets city hromada – its a story about leadership.
Mayor of Trostyanets city Yuriy Bova took part in the first event of the new format.
He shared with the participants of the event his experience of building a successful community:
“Decentralization is a huge chance for development. The state has provided a tool. Then it’s just a matter of management, which will manage the territory. And in correctly defining the accents and priorities for the development of this territory.”
Trostyanets hromada demonstrates that leadership is a process. When you have the ambition to do something, achieve something, make history.
According to Yuriy Bova, city hromada is constantly looking for new solutions and ideas:
“We want innovations to enter the lives of even the smallest of our Trostyan residents. Innovation means not being afraid to try. Now is the time to try. People are tired of despair, decline, everything. People want changes. And they will accept them…”
And he adds:
“If we start now, this breakthrough will be visible in decades. If someone sleeps through this time now — believe me, they will stay in it. I think we have enormous potential. We have talented people. It seems to me that people just lack confidence and faith that we can. We can make normal yards, normal hospitals. Now these processes have gone. And it seems to me that this is the greatest success of Ukraine that we have finally started to deal with the future generation. It will grow up differently if we invest resources in it.”
In this film, we classified the dreams and projects of the community into four areas, on which we separately emphasized: 1) Trostyanets – the eastern festival capital of Ukraine, 2) The newest educational space, 3) Why modernize the doctor’s office?, 4) The community’s sports ambitions.
We also asked the mayor and children at school how they see Trostyanets in 2035?
Combining all this into one strategy, and having a clear implementation plan in the Trostyanets community, can inspire other communities in Ukraine to transfer these practices to themselves.
The film was shot by the STS company (Sumy city) at the request of the “U-LEAD with Europe” Program as part of a series of online visits to territorial communities in Ukraine
