Ukraine: training for EU social policy standard

Representatives of 10 Ukrainian cities – Makiivka, Slovyansk, Glukhiv, Okhtyrka, Chernivtsi, Novodnistrovsk, Ostrog, Kuznetsovsk, Kakhovka and Kherson ? are going through an intensive training on EU standards in social policy and community development from May 2006 on. The learning process lasts 10 months and is part of the EC funded support project for NGO Development in selected Ukrainian regions. On the basis of the European Charter of the Council of Europe (1996) and the Strategy of the Council of the European Union on combating social exclusion, the participants – majors and higher state officers of the regional centres have the opportunity to evaluate their own cities? social policy and to develop new approaches to client-oriented social services. The next step will be a one-week study visit to Belgium where local social policy of several small cities will be examined, and NGO projects will be visited. At a feedback session, one participant said that, during the seminar, she had understood one crucial thing: ?We have to improve our work decisively. Until now, we did not ask our target groups of their needs. This must be changed in future?.