It’s jolly to stroll together,
And it’s better to sing in chorus…
This children’s song is well-known and dear to every Ukrainian adult. It reminds us about a wonderful period in our lives, when the world seemed so bright, so friendly, so appealing… But, unfortunately, the meaning of these words often escapes our mind. As a result, in Ukraine as a whole, and in Crimea in particular, people from the most vulnerable groups survive by themselves. And this was the case with the Crimean village of Sevastyanovka of Bakhchisaraysky district.
In the village, located 23 km away from Simferopol and 8 km away from the district centre, there is no kindergarten, no school, and no hospital. The majority of the villagers make their living from keeping their households and small-scale cattle breeding. So, we can esily imagine how important water is for them. And it was water they had the problem with...
Sevastyanovka lacked a centralized water supply system. That’s why the villagers had to bring water from a single well. Naturally, this complicated household works and farmland watering.
“When finally we decided to solve the problem, we visited all possible authorities and understood that nobody could help us”, said Aishe Kudusova, a village dweller. “But we were lucky to meet the Crimea Integration and Development Programme. Its specialists managed to convince us that we are strong together”.
This was September 2002. Relatively soon four community organizations were established – “Dalira”, “Mriya”, “Mechta” and “Nadezhda”. One of the meetings approved a water project implementation plan.
While implementing the project, the villagers appreciated support from the UNDP-led Crimea Integration and Development Programme, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the council and state administration of Bakhchisaraysky district, and Pochtovsky village council. The project included the construction of a water conduit three kilometers long, two reservoirs with a capacity of 100 cubic meters each and village distribution networks more than two kilometers long.
As a result, at the end of 2003 long-awaited water came to the houses of the local dwellers, taking along hope for development: the villagers activated farming and cattle breeding. Moreover, inspired by success, they decided to solve another bottleneck – lack of gas supply. The government allocated funds for laying a gas pipeline from the main pipe to the village. This became possible due to the villagers’ pro-active stand, productive work with governmental authorities and funds and money invested in documents and project development. The works within the village were carried out at the expense of the local dwellers.
Another initiative of the Sevastyanovka dwellers is the agricultural service cooperative “Agroplus” created in April 2009 for rendering its members services on tillage and fodder conservation for cattle breeding. According to its chairperson, Sabri Ramazanov, now each villager has the opportunity to work the land which has not been cultivated for ten years.
As we see, Sevastyanovka of Bakhchisaraysky district is one of those Crimean villages, the communities of which have benefited from working with UNDP and continued to develop further after completion of UNDP-backed projects. These people fully realized that cooperation is extremely important in this life. And this means that the Programme’s work was not for nothing, and its main goal has been achieved.
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