“We have wonderful training conditions. We have an artificial football lawn and all conditions for volleyball training, - Stanislav Toroni, director of the children's and youth sports school in the Polianska AH, does not hide his satisfaction with the conditions provided by the amalgamated hromada. - In late autumn Ivan Drohobetskyi, head of the Polianska AH, presented us with sports equipment. In winter, we usually train in indoor premises. We have everything we need for our classes. And when it is warmer, we will move to the artificial lawn.”

Ivan Drohobetskyi inspired opening of the children's and youth sports school. “Creation of the sports school has become a consequence of our public health programme, - he says. - Healthcare is one of the hromada’s priorities, and we aim to bring up a healthy generation. Therefore, the sports school opening was a No1 issue. Of course, children should start going in for sport since childhood. Sport disciplines kids and allows them to grow healthy.”

Mr Drohobetskyi explains that due to the legislation, it is easy to open sports school in hromada. However, local authorities are not in a hurry to do so, as such sports institution should be 100% financed from the local budget. “This is a usual reason why sports schools do not open in villages. Revenues of village councils rarely allow to spend money on such things. For example, the maintenance of a children's and youth sports school costs almost UAH 1 million a year. The second problem is the lack of sports base. Kids just do not have any facilities to go in for sports. Well, we can open a sports school - and what is the next step?”

There are no problems with the base in Poliana. It was provided free of charge by the local bodies of public organisation “Olimpiya”. Now there are two sports sections - football (4 age groups) and volleyball (2 age groups) ones, attended by 80 children.

An interesting point: not only children living on the territory of the Polianska hromada are welcome to attend the children's and youth sports school. “We know that children, who are not residents of our AH, are registered with the sports school, but we are not against it, since the goal is to improve the health of the nation, not only that of the hromada. They may come and train as well,” explains Mr Drohobetskyi.

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