Territory of Development: Community Mobilization in Ukraine

About this grant

The project goals are to strengthen local-level civic participation in decisionmaking and to build social capital and cohesion in Ukraine. To these ends, the Municipal Center for Humanistic Technologies "AHALAR" will mobilize local communities in Ukraine to effectively address and resolve issues of common concern. Through its training school, the grantee will train over 70 local activists to become social animators — promoters in their communities of effective community organizing and communications techniques. Online and social media resources will supplement offline training activities and will provide further communication channels with local communities. In 2010-2012, the grantee successfully trained 80 social animators from communities throughout Ukraine. This resulted in the implementation of over 20 sustained community projects. The project will emphasize dissemination of results and learning through two national-level conferences and publication of a handbook for practitioners. Established in 1994, the grantee is based in Chernihiv, Ukraine, and works with community leaders and activists throughout Ukraine.