Olena Krasiuk, ASC director of Verbkivska AH, and Lyubov Kholodenko, head of the Verbkivska amalgamated hromada (in the photo from left to right):

Friends at work and in real life, they both truly like what they do and share a common vision of the development of their hromada. As an educator by profession Lyubov Kholodenko is fluent in French. She had a chance to see the achievements of various communities in Europe with her own eyes. Lyubov clearly understood that she cannot allow the village to degrade. Therefore, with more than 20 years of managerial experience as a local school director and village head, she confidently gained a victory over seven other candidates running for Verbkivska amalgamated hromada head in 2015. Many young people would be envious of Lyubov Kholodenko’s energy and innovativeness. Under her leadership the Verbkivska hromada has implemented many regional and international projects, which finally helped to restore peoples’ faith in the potential of their own community. Recently, with the help of state and international partners, the hromada opened a new outpatient clinic and installed solar panels to generate their own electricity. Local healthcare facilities, kindergartens and schools got renovated for the first time at hromada's expense. In 2016, the head of the hromada and her team opened an administrative service centre (ASC), and Olena Krasiuk became its director. Before this, Olena worked 13 years for judiciary authorities and, thus, had experience in running a state institution that provides more than 120 services to its citizens. As a manager, Olena wants to make administrative services high-quality and accessible to people. Therefore, together with her young team she has worked hard to assure that each hromada resident has access to the services offered by Verbky ASC. Thanks to the international donors, the Centre received a mobile case. Having its “mobile office”, ASC specialists travel to the farthest corners of the hromada and provide high quality administrative services to those hromada residents, who are not able to visit the office premises in the central village. Olena and Lyubov always rely on each other and demonstrate