An IDP Council has been set up in Ternopil, with the main task being taking care of the IDPs’ rights, as there are already more than 90 thousand of them in the oblast.
On February 3 this year, its first meeting was held. Ternopil IDP Council will work as a permanent advisory body to the Regional Military Administration. It consists of 20 members: 12 of them are representatives of local authorities and heads of departments, and 8 are IDPs and members of the public.
“Soon we plan to hold the first strategic session with our colleagues who joined the IDP Council and discuss the work plan for 2023 to make the Council’s work as effective as possible,” said Yana Shkuratova, regional coordinator of the United Voices in Action program in Ternopilska oblast.
We would like to remind you that IDP Councils are associations of civic activists, lawyers, local authorities and simply indifferent people (often from among IDPs) who are looking for systemic solutions to integrate IDPs into host communities and solve their urgent problems.
IDP Councils are created in the frames of the United Voices in Action program implemented by IREX in Ukraine together with our Foundation and with the support of the U.S. Department of State. Today, such advisory bodies exist in more than 10 regions of Ukraine to integrate IDPs into their new places of residence as quickly as possible and give them the right to vote.
Do you want to create an IDP Council in your region? Contact us to join the initiative groups: [email protected].