Best Practices from Ukraine and Albania

Best Practice dealing with Government

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Collaboration with the local government Dorcas Albania......................................................1

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The Anchor Kiev, Ukraine........................................................................................................2

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Family help in Druzhkovka, Ukraine........................................................................................3

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Mayora Social Centrer, Ukraine...............................................................................................3

1. Collaboration with the local government Dorcas Albania My example and explanation is typical in countries with a fragile democracy, whereby the government is not playing its role as it should do. It shows how we as Dorcas Albania reached collaboration with the local government when setting up our 3 Daily Care Centers for Children. Dorcas was willing to invest on condition that the LG would provide space for the three centers and pay water, electricity and heating.

I will list few tips people need to know or have before starting working and collaborating with the local government.

What is necessary to do to collaborate?  Work fair and honest  Keep your promises  Build up relations  Build trust  Network  Differentiate  Mutual interest  The skills should be there.

How could you persist?  If you want to collaborate with the LG you need to persist and have continuous relations and meetings. Of utmost importance is, building up relations, gain trust and respect.  Dorcas has been present in my town since 1992. We have done a lot for the town and the people in the city and in the villages around. The reputation is so good that the local government is willing to listen.  There should be mutual interest in the projects you want to develop. The local government hardly cares for social issues but, they are happy if you as an NGO take over some social services. Besides, in our case, the Mayor could be proud of setting up those centers and use them in advantage of his local election campaign.  So, we were provided with three facilities, one in the ownership of the Municipality and two others rented from the local government.

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After that we set up 4 Daily Care Centers for elderly people based on the same conditions.

Today, the costs of the four Centers are fully covered from the Local government.

What happened with hierarchy matters?  In my case the Mayor was someone I knew, before he was elected in that position. He replaced me in the position of the President of the Chamber of Commerce, after I resigned myself because of being busy with the work of Dorcas and having not enough time to manage both duties.  So, in my case I resolved all issues directly with him but, even after he became deputy Prime Minister of Albania, the new Mayor who was elected in his place, continued to support the activities of Dorcas.

What made the change successful?  The wonderful impact of Elderly and Children Centers opened ways for further collaboration with the local government. They have been always supporting us in our activities if not financially, institutionally.

Is this a normal of special situation?  Actually, this is not a normal situation. Collaboration with LG is not easy and sometimes they can be a block on your road for several reasons. It is difficult but, not impossible.

Ilia Dishnica

2. The Anchor Kiev, Ukraine Until today, we have not been able to cooperate with local authorities. The maximum that we were able to do was to hand over all the reporting required on us about the activities of the center. We bought a house from the state for work with the homeless and it lasted 5 years, but even here the state did not help us in any way. It is almost impossible to defeat the bureaucratic system in Ukraine. I will not say that our cooperation was bad or good, it was neutral. They didn’t interfere with us, but they didn’t put “sticks in the wheels,” however, no one was in a hurry to help. The rehabilitation center has been operating for 12 years, and only this week for the first time we were approached by a state organization that deals with people who are conditionally convicted with a request to conduct trainings for these people.

At the moment, we want to invite the representatives of this organization to visit our center and together with them to determine the program that we can offer for the target group of prisoners. We hope that this is the beginning of a successful cooperation with local authorities.

Irina Linnik,

3. Family help in Druzhkovka, Ukraine Lyudmila Fialko is a founder of the Rainbow non-governmental organization. She and her husband are refugees from the now-occupied territory of Ukraine.

After moving to Druzhkovka in 2015, they established an aid center and began to render assistance to refugees, providing various humanitarian aid. When the volume of humanitarian aid began to grow, 2

they asked the local authorities to provide facilities for storing and distributing aid. The city authorities provided premises and this was the first experience of interaction with local authorities.

The need for such interaction was obvious both for the aid center and for local authorities.

In the summer of 2015, there was an opportunity to send children from families of refugees to a summer camp for recreation, but the camp was far away, and there were no means to bring children to the other side of Ukraine, and again they turned to the local authorities, and the authorities helped to find two buses to bring children to the camp, and the buses were paid from local budget.

After that, Lyudmila became a member of the executive committee of the local government for two years, but eventually left this job, since she considered it was not her place.

At the same time, team members of the Rainbow and Mayora non-governmental organizations are part of local community working groups that deal with problems of families in difficult life circumstances.

Interaction with local authorities almost never results in financial assistance, but local authorities provide various organizational assistance.

At the same time, staff members of the non-governmental organization provide assistance to local social care actors in working with children and members of vulnerable families.

Lyudmila says that interaction with local authorities should be a norm, and not an exception to the rules of activity of non-profit, non-governmental, religious organizations. Moreover, such interaction is very important, because often working with authorities simplifies interaction with local communities and increases trust in organizations and their activities.

"Our work with local communities and authorities helped us to receive grant support from UNDP, which gives us even more opportunities to influence society."

Boris Volkov Light of Resurrection

4. Mayora Social Centrer, Ukraine Coworkers of social center make a crucial work in collaboration with city social services, assisting children who have experienced trauma (difficult life circumstances, orphanage, and abuse). Directors, psychologists and schoolteachers are included to this common group too.

The center assists children, the same as to their parents through developing their parental competence; city social services either indicate families with need of development skills or inspire such parents to take different workshops held by the center. We believe that resourceful child lives in a resourceful family.

All social services and city authority clearly realize that we are a Christian organization and we are trusted thanks to our openness and intelligibility.

City authority involved us to participate in The School of a Marriage Life youth trainings that we hold in colleges and technical schools in our city. We use different tools including "Walk Thru the Bible" materials too.

Also authorities involve us to work with children with disabilities and their family members. We have permanent partnership with the inclusive center.

Our center works intensively with city authorities and services. It gives new opportunities and opens new doors for us.

For example, we organize holidays for children from vulnerable families and with the support of city authority we turn to local entrepreneurs, who helped to make a holiday and to give presents to 150 children.

We pray for God to spread our influence in the city through increasing interaction with local authority too.

To start cooperation with community and authorities / government we needed just our desire.

Recently we held a survey about public mood/how people feel inside the local community. The 3

results of the study, among other things, indicated that a major influence on how they identify themselves within the local community was provided by the activities of the "Mayora" Center, aimed at the reintegration of people who were marginalized for various reasons (dysfunctional families of young people, families with disabilities, internally displaced people, etc.)

Galina Khomchenko Light of Resurrection

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