Power is Being Taken!

From the Constituent Meeting of the All Ukrainian Association of Village and Settlement Councils

Village and settlement heads were christened to be the noblest category of Ukrainian officialdom. Why? Because they are the nearest to people and land. They have the same misfortunes and sweets of life as their fellow-villagers do.

And, as they say, they have too much responsibility. “I am all in one person - a chairman, a deputy, a driver, an economist, a lawyer, a diplomat, a psychologist and a psychotherapist, I do not have security - doors are always open and the inhabitants of the village – old and young – come to me, and I have to listen to all of them, help and give an advice”, – that is how Vasyl Abaimov, the head of Dobrotvirskyi settlement, Kamynka-Buzkyi district, Lviv region, described his work. Unfortunately, the state has not officially recognized such original universality of the heads of self-governing societies. However, time is needed for it.

Meeting – the first one

For the years of independence of the country its capital has never seen such populous meeting, the participants of which presented the fifth part of the population of Ukraine from the Carpathians to Siverskyi Dinets, and from Polissya to Crimea. Around six thousand heads of village and settlement councils - the authorized representatives of their societies - gathered together on the first Saturday of September in Kyiv. Their aim at the meeting was to unite into the All Ukrainian Association of Village and Settlement Councils. 

Before it, the decision about the entrance into the Association had been accepted in the public at the sessions of local councils. The formation of such association was made for the sake of village renewal.  

It’s good that the representatives of all without an exception areas and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea participated in the formation of new public organization. For example, in Nizhyn district of Chernigov region the desire to enter the Association was expressed at once by 30 village and settlement communities, in Novoukrainskyi district of Kirovograd region- 21 village councils, in Striy district of Lviv region– 18. 22 village councils from Sarnenskyi district of Rivne region decided to become the members of the Association, and in the Crimean Autonomy the authorized officials of village communities of Bakhchysaray district turned out to be the most active supporters of the Association.

Iryna NAGREBETSKA, Viktor KORNIYUK