This summer over 50 students of Zhytomyr universities will pass their internship within the governing bodies of amalgamated hromadas of the Zhytomyr Oblast. Such an agreement has been reached today among the representatives of AHs of the oblast and Zhytomyr universities at the round table meeting, held at the Zhytomyr Local Government Development Centre, established with the support of the U-LEAD with Europe Programme and MinRegion.

“We’ve started working on human potential development and HR policy formation in AHs since last December. Today we are talking about one of the key results of this work – young people come back to their hromadas after graduation from universities for internship and work. This is the main condition for the development and growth of hromadas, as millions of budget hryvnias will be effective only in the presence of creative and skilled personnel,” said Vasyl Nevmerzhytskyi, director of the Zhytomyr LGDC.

During the round table meeting, several agreements were signed between the Zhytomyr National Agroecological University and AHs on sending students for internship to amalgamated hromadas. This is the first step to establish communication between the university and hromadas and employ young professionals within AH institutions.

“We are interested in ensuring that our students have real practice in addition to the theoretical knowledge that we give at the university. Today hromadas form a new system of local governance, and this is a chance for young people to enter this system,” convinced Oleh Skydan, chancellor of the Zhytomyr National Agroecological University.

AH leaders are now struggling for skilled professionals, who can really change the quality of hromada management and intensify the development of territories.

“Our hromada team is active and creative, we are working on professional growth, but there are certain areas we were not dealing with prior to the reform, therefore, we are looking for the staff or forming our own, that is, re-train employees. We want to see students passing their internship, and, I'm convinced, consequently working in our AH,” noted Nataliya Semeniuk, head of the Semenivska AH.