On October 20, the Recovery and Development Forum was held in Ivano-Frankivsk. The organizer of the event is the Warm City charitable foundation, an innovative platform for creating opportunities and social transformations. Support for the holding of the Forum was provided by the International Renaissance Foundation.
The forum was conceived as a platform for discussing the challenges of war faced by the “rear cities”, sharing experiences and working out common solutions and steps to overcome them. 24 speakers and more than 100 participants joined the event.
Reconstruction, rehabilitation of veterans, psychosocial support of the population and human capital were discussed at four panel discussions.
Among the speakers was our executive director Oleksandr and his deputy Inna Pidluska, who emphasized in their speeches that our focus in recovery should be human capital.
The first panel, in which the deputy executive director of our Foundation, Inna Pidluska, took part, was devoted to the participation of rear cities and regions in restoration and reconstruction (modernization). Together with her, Oleksandra Azarkhina (Deputy Minister of Community Development, Territories and Infrastructure of Ukraine), Svitlana Onyshchuk (Chairman of Ivano-Frankivsk OVA), Viktor Mykyta (Chairman of Zakarpattia OVA) and Ruslan Martsinkiv (Mayor of Ivano-Frankivsk) discussed this topic.
Inna Pidluska emphasized that the focus of rear communities should be social capital and the economy. This means taking care of people’s safety, education, development of veteran spaces and the necessary system of services.
She also noted how important it is for such communities to be able to determine their own needs, find resources for their provision, self-organize and encourage community residents to participate in this work.
This is also important in the context of our European integration, because subsidiarity and the subjectivity of communities based on their own needs are fundamental principles for the EU and necessary for us to make changes in the construction of regional policies:
“Recovery is not about physical reconstruction. It is about the people for whom it is being done. We need not just a sustainable recovery, we need a recovery that will move us towards EU membership – by the power of government, business, civil society, communities and citizens We need an integrated system of people-oriented decision-making, in which intersectoral support works and where subjects mobilize each other,” said Inna Pidluska.
The discussion panel, in which Oleksandr Sushko took part, was devoted to how we can preserve, strengthen and strengthen human capital through the fields of education, medicine and civil society support. It was also attended by Tetyana Gavrish (co-founder of the BF “Healthy Solutions”), Yurii Filyuk (CEO Promprylad.Renovation) and Halyna Tytysh (head of the “Smart Education” organization).
Oleksandr Sushko emphasized that human capital is one of the advantages of our society:
“The war revealed the limits of what is possible – what we are capable of and what we are less capable of. And we saw that human capital is one of the main advantages of our society. And I would formulate our main dilemma in relation to human society as follows: horizontal self-organization, our adaptability made our people are global, and this can become our problem in war conditions: fewer people will return,” Oleksandr said.
He also added that horizontal self-organization is something that operates outside the bubbles of different social statuses and beyond regional differences. We band together, self-organize and adapt – and not only in the face of threat, but also in relatively peaceful times:
“This is what unites the country. And this is something that we will take for the long term. This is something that can be sold to the world, this is something that says: we can do business with us, we can take care of ourselves.” – he concluded.
The other two panels discussed the role of veterans’ movements in military rehabilitation, challenges for rehabilitation at the local level, functions of private and public rehabilitation centers, and psychosocial support for the population.
Among the participants were Oksana Kolyada, project manager of the NGO “Space of Opportunities”, coordinator of the Coalition of Veteran Spaces, which has been supported by our Foundation since its creation. And also Ksenia Voznitsyna (director of the Center for mental health and rehabilitation of veterans “Lisova Polyana” of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine), Masi Nayem (co-founder of the human rights center for the military “Princip”) and others.
You can read more about each panel on the Forum’s Facebook page or on the Warm City website.
Фото: Тепле місто
