The fourth meeting of the “Community Support Team” was held at the Ministry of Reconstruction of Ukraine under the leadership of Deputy Minister of Development of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Oleksandra Azarkhina and with the participation of Advisor - Commissioner of the President of Ukraine for Barrier-Free Access Tetyana Lomakina.
The main task of this working group is to unite the efforts of representatives of initiatives, programs and projects aimed at restoring local development, in order to coordinate recovery measures and identify the priority needs of communities.
"The Ministry of Reconstruction plays a key role in issues of accessibility and accessibility. Today, the state is focusing its efforts on improving the regulatory framework, harmonizing European standards in issues of accessibility. We strive for the implementation of the principles of accessibility to be a mandatory, cross-cutting component of the process of both the physical reconstruction of regions and the provision of services on the ground," emphasized Oleksandra Azarkhina.
For her part, Tetyana Lomakina, Advisor and Commissioner to the President of Ukraine on Accessibility, shared her experience working with territorial communities on issues of implementing accessibility.
“A barrier-free society is a dream that we should strive for despite the war and the accompanying obstacles. After all, barrier-freeness concerns each of us in terms of free access to work, education, communication, and movement in space. At the local level, we want Ukrainian communities to work on programs and action plans in the context of introducing barrier-freeness, implement and measure results and achievements,” said Tetyana Lomakina.
We would like to remind you that projects, initiatives and programs of development partners working on the restoration and development of the capacity of territorial communities are invited to participate in the working group meetings. Proposals can be sent to the Working Group Secretariat at the following email address: [email protected] .
Yuriy Fomichev, the mayor of Slavutych urban territorial community, shared his experience in implementing barrier-free access at the local level.
“The concept of accessibility for the city of Slavutych means, first of all, creating a comfortable environment for all its residents. When we started this process in 2020 at the initiative of the first lady Olena Zelenska, we could not even imagine how important and practical this issue would be. However, soon the residents of Slavutych expressed their need for accessibility, which everyone feels. It so happened that Slavutych became a special laboratory for accessibility, where we first implemented and continue to work on a number of projects and initiatives in the context of accessibility. Now, each new project that we launch in the city is examined through the prism of accessibility and analyzed by our team to take into account the interests of all social groups,” noted the mayor of Slavutych, Yuriy Fomichev.
Olena Nesterets, a health services development expert at the Community-Led Inclusive Recovery (CLIR) initiative, spoke about CLIR's approach to implementing barrier-free practices on the ground.
“The CLIR initiative is aimed at comprehensive expert support for territorial communities, the main component of which is the implementation of a barrier-free environment in communities. At the same time, it is the communities themselves who are the leaders of change, since they best understand the needs of their residents, in particular people with disabilities and other vulnerable groups of the population. Our joint work on accessibility issues is focused on two main areas. First, we help develop a vision, goals and objectives for accessibility, which will be implemented in the Development Strategy of each territorial community. Second, we are looking for ways to eliminate barriers that require immediate resolution in various areas of community life. Together with community representatives, we are developing solutions on how to fix these barriers and what opportunities can be provided to local residents,” added Olena Nesterets.
