Bodies of self-organization of the population are an opportunity for the community to unite to solve its own problems. They haven’t gained significant popularity in Volyn yet. However, one of the first successful examples of the village of Melnyky in Shachchyna shows the significant potential of such a solution.
Together with experts, we figured out what bodies of self-organization of the population are and learned from the founders of one of them how it helps to manage the community better.
Bodies of self-organization of the population in Volyn are a much less well-known form of organization than, for example, the association of co-owners of multi-apartment buildings or simply a public organization. In the meantime, there is even a special law regarding their formation and activity. However, today it makes their initiation a rather complicated procedure.
The initiator of the first attempts to create them in Volyn was the NGO “Volyn Institute of Law”, which has been helping local self-government and the public sector in the region for a long time. Among several attempts to initiate the creation of the bodies of self-organization of the population, the most successful was the example of the villages of Melnyky and Haivka in the Shatsk community.
Here, meetings were held in every street of the village to elect delegates, followed by secret voting in the cultural center. As a result, 11 members were elected, including the chairman, secretary and deputy of the bodies of self-organization of the population. Ruslana Sydoruk became the head.
According to her, earlier the villages of Melnyky and Haivka in the Shatsk community did not have a head or deputies in the village council. Bodies of self-organization of the population took over this function. However, later active residents achieved the creation of ‘starostynskyi okruh” for these villages. The bodies of self-organization of the population helped to repair the road, establish separate garbage collection and organize interesting leisure activities for young people.