The jury of the competition “My Project for Community” announced the winner. Children competed for the best idea to improve the quality of life in their regions. The team “For the Future” representing Bazylivshchyna School (Poltava region) became the winner. The youngest competitors (8th form) propose to create a homeless animal center in the community.

The goal of the competition was to teach schoolchildren to see problems in their communities and seek ways to solve them. The young participants learned to present their ideas to both local authorities and potential investors, because the future of such projects depends on how convincing the presentation is. These are schoolchildren's first steps in improving the quality of life in their communities.

The winning team “For the Future” representing Bazylivshchyna School (Poltava region) proposed to create not a mere animal shelter in the community, but a center where homeless animals will be examined and taken care of by a veterinarian. The pupils have already chosen a building with an adjacent territory for the arrangement of the animal center. In the spring, the team plans to organize a clean-up event involving local residents in order to clear the area and start implementing the project.

It is worthwhile that all the competition finalists have already enlisted the support of local authorities in terms of co-financing and assistance in the implementation of projects.

BEMS Team (School of Donets village, Kharkiv region), ERUDYT Team (Gusakivsky Educational Complex, Lviv region), Web 3.0 Team (Varvarivsky Educational Complex, Poltava region), Stymul Team (Ivanivsky Educational Complex, Kharkiv region) also qualified for the final. All competition participants will receive frameless poufs as incentive prizes, and the finalists will receive bookcrossing stations for their schools and books from Ukrainian publishing houses, including modern Ukrainian literature.

“A bright future awaits Ukrainian communities, because there are young people there who are not indifferent and strive to make the world a better place. And we could see it for ourselves. The ideas and projects proposed by the children as part of the competition were really interesting and comprehensive. We are glad that the knowledge on sustainable development that we shared with children has come in handy and will benefit the communities. Congratulations to the competition winners! Stay strong in the pursuit of your goals, only joint efforts will make our country better” said Viacheslav Chaus, Deputy General Director of JSC Ukrgasvydobuvannya for Land and Social Affairs (Naftogaz Group).

Twenty four teams, each consisting of 3-5 participants, went in for the competition of ideas. The teams included 8th to 11th graders from Poltava, Kharkiv, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Volyn regions. According to the terms of the competition, the teams' ideas were to be in line with Naftogaz's priority goals of sustainable development:

• good health and well-being of the local population;
• quality education;
• sustainable development of cities and communities.

During November, the contestants prepared project presentations. They were backed up by online master classes on the development of creativity, the essence of social advertising, sustainable development goals in the world and in Ukraine, corporate social responsibility, as well as by motivational attitudes from representatives of the NGO “Institute of Partnership and Sustainable Development”, the Inspiring Women Academy, creative advertising agencies. The project took place with the informational support of UNDP in Ukraine. The competition was held as part of the 12th National Social Advertising Festival.