School of Community Leaders

Decentralisation Reform has initiated an irreversible process of change. Therefore, it is now extremely necessary to strengthen Ukraine on the ground, help new leaders from regions take responsibility and implement changes onward.

A programme for the School of Community Leaders was launched in 2015 under the auspices of the Ukrainian School of Political Studies and the Agency for Legislative Initiatives and was supported by the International Renaissance Foundation. During the years, we have accumulated results that prove the need for further work with communities:

The School of Community Leaders started in 2015 in order to prepare worthy leaders for possible participation in local elections and improve their competence for participation in making high-quality management decisions at the local level.

Communities in different regions of Ukraine are facing a wide range of problems – from safe surroundings and clean environment up to access to good healthcare and education. Therefore, trainings now are focused on effective management skills, decentralisation reform and tools for public participation.

We have begun to deepen cooperation with communities and provide long-term mentoring to meet their urgent needs. In 2021, we paid special attention to ecology mentoring, during which programme participants learned more about environmental impact assessment for communities, adaptation to climate change and disposal of household and other waste.

Participants of 2021 School of Community Leaders had an opportunity to collaborate with ecology mentors in their communities after the training. Together, mentors and leaders researched and analysed major environmental issues in more than 20 communities. And a result of the work they both identified main problems and drew attention to them of local stakeholders – government officials, owners of enterprises, whose activities lead to pollution, activists and just citizens.

The School of Community Leaders 2021 has launched important processes to improve environment in communities. In the coming years, the programme will expand to mentoring communities in areas such as safety, education and healthcare.

• representatives of local self-government at all levels, heads of amalgamated territorial communities, local activists and volunteers who:
• have significant professional achievements and demonstrate leadership qualities;
• take an active life position and are ready to use acquired knowledge for the benefit of our society and communities;
• have credit of trust and community support for implementing management decisions;
• ready to work with their communities after completing the programme and using tools, gained during the training.