Another project success!

Now working on my other project today we had the proud moment of handing over 400,000 Euros worth of equipment to the social services departments of one region of Ukraine, including also the overall ministry. This included cars, minivans, computers, furniture etc.

Busy press conference - the Governor of Kiev Oblast was there, as was a senior representative of the Ministry. Some searching questions like 'why, if you have all this money, do you give equipment to the officials. isn't it easier just to give the money to the children?' One social worker stood up and said that now that they had the car, it was much easier for them to visit people's homes across her raion - a distance of up to 42 km. So these cars improve efficiency, and also could help prevent the admission of children into expensive institutions, if intervention and help is provided early enough. Plus small goods can be distributed with the cars etc. Anyway, a nice success for the EU and our Kiev Oblast partners. It is not easy getting it right when distributing EU funding; there are endless hoops to be gone through in terms of paperwork, and some projects fail in using all the EU funding available.

Tony Blair got a 23 second polite handclap today at the TUC conference, and some people walked out on him. Good for them.