Журнал Viche 2013 №3

№3, 2013

Water conduct of hope. Cherepashyntsi construction under the patronage of Switzerland.

This had to happen once. That day the habitants of village Cherepashyntsi of Kalinivskyi district in Vinnytsya region opened water valves in their homes in vain… For half a century the centralized water-supply had been in operation without a hitch, that is why one could hardly give credence to gossips that this free of charge benefit will soon disappear, but the confirmation was not delayed: there was not even a drop of water from the water valves. And once again one had to make sure in the hard justice of the known utterance: without water you can hardly do anything…

Though by then people in Cherepashyntsi did not know the Swiss experience, they could not imagine what they had to do in such situation, they did not have a plan of actions. And there were only “mobilization” factors: to stand in queues to the wells already at 4 am because for a few hours it was run out of water. In this locality it is difficult to get to the watery stratum because the layers of granite bed are there. Therefore there are only few wells and people had to carry pailfuls on almost kilometer distance.

This try-out made villagers start looking for the solution actively. Then they got to know about DESPRO – Swiss-Ukrainian Project “Decentralization Support in Ukraine».

Oleksandr MALIYENKO