On June 30, from 4:00 PM to 7:30 PM, a national presentation of the results of the project “Polyethnic Heritage for the Development of Ukrainian Communities” was held. The event was held in the format of a Zoom conference and broadcast on the Facebook page of the NGO “Agency for Private Initiative Development”.  

The event was attended by 54 participants: representatives of Ukrainian communities, CSOs, experts in the field of heritage management, leaders of CSO partners of the Network for Support of Communities with Heritage GoHeritage!, representatives of Ukrainian donor organizations. The event was moderated by Oleksandr Neberykut, an analyst of the All-Ukrainian OPORA Network. The event had an unprecedented audience reach and became an image event for the ATCs, which presented the concepts developed during the project workshops. The reach was more than 24,000 people. The live viewing of the event was more than 10,000 people. The project participants found themselves in the focus of donor structures and received direct comments from them on their presentations. For most of the communities, these were the first presentations to the general public.

At the beginning of the event, the project manager Lada Malaniy gave a presentation of the project “Polyethnic Heritage for the Development of Ukrainian Communities”: she spoke about its implementation, goal, objectives and results that were achieved.

Oksana Fedorovych, founder of the GoHeritage! CSO network for communities with heritage, head of the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast Tourism Association, gave a presentation on the rapid assessment of the heritage potential of five polyethnic communities in Ukraine. Oksana said that within 3 months, experts developed a methodology, conducted an assessment, wrote 5 reports and developed recommendations for each community. The assessment was carried out according to four categories, which included 15 criteria, and those, in turn, consisted of indicators. According to the results of the rapid assessment of the heritage potential, the heritage potential index for all communities was practically at the same level, but the highest indicator was received by Sokyrianska AH (61.3/100).

The next block of the event was the presentation of the results of creative online workshops and pitching of project ideas. The block was moderated by Olena Kalibaba, CEO of the Chasopys creative space, the facilitator of the creative workshop, who spoke about the logic of community presentations and presented each of the communities within the pitching process. Each of the community presentations included the following blocks: community issues and prospects, goal, objectives, target groups, expected results, sustainability, projected impact, cost and project roadmap.

The first community to present its project idea was Velykobereznyanska ATC. The village head Bohdan Kyrlyk presented to the public the idea of ​​creating a living museum in Yavornyk, which will become a starting point for the development of a tourist community. The main goal of creating a museum is to recreate the everyday life of different ethnic groups living in the community, and to provide an opportunity to touch their traditions.

EthnoTours “In the Kosy” were the second project idea presented at the event. The speaker was Sofia Khodiuk, deputy head of the village for economic issues of the Kuyalnytsia Village Council. In her speech, Sofia revealed the issues that preceded the creation of the project idea and demonstrated to the audience how the project is able to solve existing problems. Visitors will be offered three different tours within the community, and one of them will be tested in July this year.

The third project idea from the Sokyrianska AH was the creation of the Ethno-space “Sokyriansky Yar”, which was told by Natalia Prepelitsa, leading specialist for investments of the Sokyrianska City Council. The goal of the project is to create a development infrastructure to actualize local cultures of work, based on the heritage of local stone and natural clay. The project combined three main community resources – the Pottery Museum, Sokyriansky Yar, and Mine Workings.

Petro Bryzhak, First Deputy Mayor of Storozhynets, presented the project idea "Storozhynets on the Heights", the purpose of which is to increase the potential of Storozhynets' cultural heritage to launch the local tourism economy through the creation of infrastructure for the interpretation of the cultural heritage of the city hall, raising awareness of the local population about the value of local cultural heritage, increasing local entrepreneurial activity and improving creative business skills and promoting the cultural heritage of Storozhynets.

Chahor Malanka Show is a creative and promising idea of ​​the Chahorska AH, presented as part of the event by Bohdan Petrunyak, the leading investment specialist of the Chahorska Village Council. The goal of the project is to promote the Chahorska AH as a place of unique intangible heritage through a modern interpretation (demonstration) of the ritual culture preserved in the community. To achieve the goal, the following tasks were defined: Development of the performance of malanka and consolidation of the Chahorska community for the interpretation of local heritage, strengthening the creative potential of the community in the field of the visiting economy and strengthening the identity and originality of the community through the promotional campaign of Chahorska Malanka.

After the presentations of the communities, online voting for projects began. It was online voting that made it possible to quickly and easily attract community residents to the event, cheer for its representatives and feel involved in the life of the community, share responsibility for its heritage resources and its plans for local development.

The next block of the event was dedicated to presentations and discussions of civil society leaders, practitioners of local development based on heritage potential. The discussion was attended by 6 representatives of CSOs who presented their experience, in particular:

• Hanna Gavryliv, Head of the Cultural Heritage UA with the topic "Precedents on Old Castles"
• Volodymyr Hrynishak, Head of the Scientific and Technological Center with the topic "How to Protect Yourself from Wrong Decisions"
• Vasyl Rozhko, Director of the Tustan Festival with the topic "How and Why Tustan Has Changed"
• Mykola Homanyuk, Polina Rayko Foundation, with the topic "Reincarnation of the District Museum"
• Oksana Kleban, Head of the Ivano-Frankivsk Association of the Rural Green Tourism Union with the topic "From the Vyhoda Narrow Gauge Heritage Center to Vyhoda Lifestyle Products"
• Vlada Lytovchenko, Director of the VYKZ, Candidate of Historical Sciences with the topic "Modern Vyshgorod"

The last block of the event was a feedback session from donor organizations and crowdfunding platforms and the results of online voting for community projects. The feedback session was attended by Yulia Fediv, Executive Director of the Ukrainian Cultural Fund, Halyna Lytvyn, Executive Director of the Euroregion Carpathians-Ukraine Association, Iryna Solovey, social innovator, president of the Garage Gang NGO, a tool for community projects, Lala Tarapakina, founder of the 12 Watchmen Foundation, a marketer, and Svitlana Yavorska, Program Coordinator of the Politics, Economics and Public Relations Department of the British Embassy in Ukraine.

Voting took place in two stages: by the event participants directly on Zoom and by the event viewers in the comments to the live broadcast. The online voting caused quite a stir - the event collected over 700 comments from viewers. According to the results of the Facebook voting, the projects of Kuyalnytsia AH (126 votes) and Sokyrianska AH (89 votes) received the most points. In turn, the participants of the event gave the most votes to Sokyrianska AH (8) and Velykobereznya AH (7).

The event was held within the framework of the project "Diverse ethnic heritage for hromadas development", which is implemented by the NGO "Agency for Private Initiative Development" with the support of the "U-LEAD with Europe" Program. The "U-LEAD with Europe" Program for Ukraine on Local Empowerment, Accountability and Development is co-financed by the European Union and its Member States Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Poland and Estonia.

Useful sources:

Link to the event on Facebook

Link to the live event on Facebook

Link to the event on YouTube