Swiss-Ukrainian Project “Decentralization Support in Ukraine” in cooperation with Creative Association “Slavuta” conducted the round table, which officially launched the Media Competition “Uniting the Community!” in Sumy Oblast. The competition is devoted to covering the practical experience in the sphere of population self-organization and effective solutions of rural communities’ problems in five regions of Ukraine – Vinnytsya, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblasts and AR Crimea.

Valeriya Bondarenko, Head of Creative Association “Slavuta” presented the demands and requirements of competition and answered the reporters’ questions.

Oleksandr Sitak, Head of Sumy Oblast State Administration Economic Department informed the audience on international projects progress in Sumy Oblast. The speaker stressed that rayons, selected by DESPRO were the most problematic in Oblast and never belonged to the pilot ones of international technical support. Oleksandr Sitak said that he planned to use the competition’s “Uniting the Community!” results for the development of all Sumy Oblast communities.

Representatives of Romensky rayon territorial communities also took part in the event. Yuriy Lyah from Bobryk village and Tetyana Gorenko from Yaroshivka village told about DESPRO activities. More than 80% of mentioned communities’ population is involved into solution of water-supply problems.

Ihor Zvyagin, Swiss-Ukrainian project “Decentralization Support in Ukraine” PR specialist, presented DESPRO objectives and methods in Ukraine. He also mentioned that the competition is a part of knowledge management component, for the covered practical experience will result in manual, which would help the communities with no previous experience to find the most effective methods of addressing the rural problems due to social mobilization.

Alla Fedoryna, Head of Sumy Oblast Press-Club informed on mass media environment in Sumy Oblast and on how the problems of village self-governance were covered. She presented the practical implementation of know-how in solving the problems of village communities in Oblast.

Nataliya Roztorguyeva, Consultant of Information-Analytical Unit of Sumy Oblast Council Executive Department highlighted past, current environment as well as perspectives for self-governance development in Oblast.

Besides above mentioned persons, more than 20 journalists from Sumy Oblast, who will take part in the competition, participated in the round table.