Up until now, IDP Councils in Ukraine operated at the oblast, city or community level.
Now – for the first time – such an advisory body will work at the level of the city district.
So, please welcome the new IDP Council in Kyiv Obolon district. It was created in the frames of the United Voices for Action program implemented by IREX in Ukraine and CF SSS. Our regional coordinator in Kyiv and Kyivska oblast Oleksandr Yavtushenko contributed to its establishment.
What will the newly created IDP Council do?
Firstly, its members will collect and systematize the requests of the IDPs of the capital’s Obolon district and will help in solving their problems. There is already one achievement made: activists found a technical error in the Unified Information System in the social sphere, which prevented IDPs from receiving payments. The letter “i” in the registration data was transferred to the next line as “1”, so the system simply could not find some cards. Members of the IDP Council approached the developers and they fixed the bug.
Secondly, the Obolon IDP Council will coordinate assistance from NGOs and charity foundations so that it is distributed evenly among the recipients. It happens that several organizations come to provide free legal consultations in the same places (dormitories, shelters, modular towns, etc.), whereas no one comes to some other places. The situation is similar with humanitarian aid: some people receive 3-4 kits from different funds, and some people have never received packages with food and hygiene products. The IDP Council will be able to influence the distribution of aid to avoid duplication.
Thirdly, members of the IDP Council will develop local changes, as well as attract funding from charitable organizations and foundations to create new human rights projects.
“The IDP Council in Kyiv was created a year ago, but it has not been formally launched yet — we were waiting for the city authorities to approve its staff composition. It is noteworthy that the creation of the Council in Obolon district also pushed Kyiv authorities to act: we can hope that as early as in January-February the IDP Council at the level of the capital will start to fully operate. This is a pleasant side effect,” says Oleksandr Yavtushenko.
We congratulate him and the whole team of the United Voices for Action program with another achievement!