On March 14-15 2019, minority representatives, educators, public servants, policemen/women, journalists and the representatives of local civil society organisations participated in an open discussion with Sumy city administrators about the status of intercultural policy implementation in the municipality. As part of the meeting, the results of Sumy’s ICC Citizenship Test (recently conducted in all ICC-Ukrainian cities) were presented by the local ICC coordinator Ms. Kokhan, who pointed out to their coherence and identified similarities with the conclusions reached as a result of Sumy ICC Index analysis.

Following the guidelines offered to the ICC-Ukrainian network members during the ICC Strategy training in Pavlograd (Ukraine, October 2018) Sumy chose a three-pillar based methodology for their ICC Strategy development. These pillars include city’s ICC Index Card, ICC Citizenship Test, and the intercultural SWOT analysis of the community. The two-day work in Sumy focused on briefing the community and other stakeholders about the implementation of the first two pillars and the SWOT analysis of ICC policies in Sumy.

Open discussion about the status of the ICC policy implementation in Sumy turned to be very concrete and engaging. Sumy community representatives were particularly outspoken on the practical matters related to the intercultural image if the city, given that Sumy has a high population of foreign students who come from more than 50 different countries - including Europe, Latin America, Asia, India and Africa - and speak more than 20 different languages.

The educators were particularly articulative about the benefits - social, economic, and even political - of having foreign students in their institutions, and about the challenges the city has to address in order that these young people and non-Ukrainian nationals in general feel welcome in the city.

For instance, some of the foreign students have opened their SMEs or even bigger companies in Sumy following their graduation from Ukrainian universities. One example is Kusma Farm - a pharmaceutical enterprise established in Sumy by a former student from India more than 10 years ago. Today, Kusma Farm has 400 employees in Sumy and almost 800 in Ukraine. Besides, although Kusma Farm has brunches in India, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Moldova, Philippines and Myanmar, its headquarter and the largest establishment remains in Sumy. The national ICC- Ukraine coordinator Kseniya Rubicondo visited Kusma Farm during her trip to Sumy and met the Deputy Director Mr. Javle Vikaskumar, who explained the benefits of running their business in Sumy. Another example is a Uzbek Cuisine Club, a SME opened by the students of Sumy Pedagogical University that serves food to students and visitors on the university’s campus.

Regardless the benefits offered by the foreigners to the city, they still face some challenges in their everyday life. The participants of the meeting pointed out that Sumy remains attractive for the newcomers - businessmen and students alike, - as it is a comparatively compact and safe city with affordable cost of living, accessibility of public services for all, and positive attitude of the local population towards the newcomers.  At the same time, from the practical point of view, there is a need for improved public transportation and signage (road as well as transport); improved medical, food and other services, their accessibility for all; and, upon suggestion of the police, more structured and obligatory orientation packages and sessions for newcomers in order to prevent misunderstanding, conflicts and law violations.

The 2nd day session, dedicated to the SWOT analysis of the ICC policies implemented in Sumy, helped to document Sumy’s policy strengths and weaknesses in order to transform them into new, effective ICC policies and opportunities.

At the end of the 2nd day of work separate lists of ideas were generated by different groups of representative participating in the meeting. These ideas will be taken up for a comprehensive analysis together with the ICC Index and Citizenship Test results in order to produce, by the end of June 2019, the first ICC Strategy priorities’ list. Sumy aims to include its forthcoming ICC Strategy into its general City Strategy 2027, also under preparation.

“A lot of community work has been done over the past three years, and we have finally come a long way to understand that it is absolutely necessary to develop a unified ICC strategy defining long-term intercultural goals and perspectives that we must strive for. Once Sumy’s Intercultural Strategy is developed, it will become part of the City Development Strategy until 2027," says Ms. Antonina Kokhan, local ICC coordinator and Director of Information and Communication Policy department of the city.

“The intercultural aspect is critical in determining the development policy of the city” said Mr. Pak, the Deputy Mayor; “without proper interaction within the community, without tolerance and positive attitude towards different cultures, it is hardly possible to achieve our common goals as a community. Therefore, we were happy to join the ICC initiative three years ago... The transformation of Sumy into an intercultural city is undoubtedly a long-term process, but at the same time, it is a key task for everybody for the sake of prosperity and development of our community, its social cohesion and the well-being of our residents."