Alexey is a specialist in strategic planning of areas development and investments and founder of business incubator «Lift”. He has worked as an from entrepreneur 1997--2017. Alexey now owns 9 companies in the Ukraine, one company in Riga, and one corporation in Ontario. Alexey created the NGO The CF Solidarity and Responsibility. The main aim is job creation and the development of the rural territories, which are, as a rule, disadvantaged. Since that time, we have been looking at the best practices, trying to create our own ones and looking for partners (unfortunately the Ukrainian government doesn't understand that the main problem of Ukraine is poverty of the people and corruption). But USAID (USA), GIZ (Germany), and foreign government companies are trying to support our attempts to find the welfare recipe for my country! The incubator "Lift" was opened summer 2016 and it has 1080 m2. Since its birth, it has created 32 entrepreneurs, 7 companies, 4 NGO and 208 jobs. It's the largest incubator in East Ukraine. Incubator "Lift" does not have any municipal or government financing.
The city of Melitopol is located in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine and is known as a ‘city of honey’ (translation from Greek). The city is particularly proud of the fact that for more than 230 years from now, various ethnic groups, nationalities and religious confessions – Orthodox, Greek and Roman Catholic, Muslim, Karait, Jew, Protestant, Buddhist, Krishna – have lived together in Melitopol in peace and harmony, offering good examples of well-established community relations, mutual respect and creating an inimitable atmosphere of a crossroad city for different cultures and peoples.
The requirements of time prompted substantial changes in the city governance, management and development of its socio-cultural life. Within the last few years, these changes have been implemented in city administration, in particular, systematic approaches to the process of intercultural integration were designed. The process started in 2008, when the city of Melitopol joined the pilot Project of the Council of Europe and the European Commission “Intercultural Cities” as a representative from Ukraine. The "Melitopol Intercultural Integration Plan 2015-2020" was developed and approved in 2015. The intercultural approach brought its first promising results in 2012, i.e. following four years of its systematic implementation. Since that time, studies have demonstrated that the city residents are quite stable in their positioning of Melitopol as an intercultural city.
The “Melitopol Intercultural Integration Plan 2015-2020” serves as a basis for the future work on the advancement of the intercultural integration policy and is strongly supported by the City Hall.The main objective of the proposed Plan is to work together with different city departments, civil society organizations and community representatives for further development of intercultural Melitopol as a full-right member of the Intercultural Cities Networks in Ukraine (ICC-UA) and Europe (ICC Programme, the Council of Europe) creating conditions and new opportunities for dynamic, inclusive, truly intercultural society with the participation of all residents regardless of their ethnic origins, religion, age, gender or education. The Melitopol activists are convinced that the design of the intercultural city model of Melitopol and its intercultural activities will contribute to the creation of a know-how in the development and implementation of the multiple intercultural policy dimensions in Ukraine. They are looking forward to sharing this experience with current and future members of the Intercultural Cities Networks in Ukraine and Europe and to strengthen the image of Melitopol as a city-innovator, a city-center of intercultural interaction in Ukraine.
