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26 January 2006, a round table on “Summary and Dissemination of Approach of the Replicable Methods of Improvement of Rural Water Supplies and Sanitation” was held in the premises of the Bila Tserkva Rayon State Administration. The roundtable was devoted to the DEFRA funded project of the same name.
The event was attended by local authorities, representatives from the project implementing enterprises, Fursy village community members, experts from the Institute for Rural Development, and journalists.
The roundtable’s objective was to disseminate experience of the Fursy village community in the restoration of a small Kamyanka river flowing through the village.
Opening the roundtable session, the Head of Bila Tserkva Rayon Rada V.I. Dudnyk said: "The theme of our meeting is extremely important, although there is no water problem for us, the Bila Tserkva rayon residents. Another thing is the quality of our water. There are 54 rivers and streams in our rayon, but looking at their condition we should think about what we are going to leave after us…”
M.I. Fursenko, Fursa Village Council Head, presented the key outputs of the watercourse decontamination project, i.e. the purification of the Kamyanka river on the territory of Fursa and Chmyrivka rural communities in the Bila Tserkva Rayon. According to him, the amount of funding attracted from local sources (community budget, money provided by local enterprises etc.) exceeded the UK grant. As a result, the community members will have a clean river meeting potable water standards, recreation areas etc. "...When we put equipment and labour consuming work in the first place, they (international experts - note) made human factor, river monitoring and awareness building a key priority, so that the community was involved more activiely in the process", siad the Fursa Village Council Head.
Based on the roundtable results, a decision was made to disseminate the Fursy community experience at the rayon level and put forward a proposal to other rayons in Kyiv and Zhytomyr oblasts, where the Kamyanka river flows, to initiate the restoration of the river within its catchment basin. Summarizing the meeting, the participants agreed that the project successful results were to a great extent ensured by active participation and involvement of a broader community (primarily school youth) in decision making at all stages of the environmental project implementation.
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