Ideas that Cost Money

Recently an awards ceremony of the Sixth Ecology Contest of the Ford Company to protect the environment along with the historical and cultural heritage was held at Kyiv’s Bohdan and Varvara Khanenkos Museum of the Arts. The authoritative jury consisting of independent Ukrainian experts in environment protection, ecological technologies, and researching the historical and cultural heritage selected three winners among the 150 projects submitted to the contest. The third prize, a $2000 grant, was given to the Children and Youth for Ecology and Aesthetic Look of the City Environment. The project goal is to fight graffiti. Due to the efforts of the project head and children from the Troyeshky Art Studio, obscenities on Kyiv walls are replaced by beautiful graffiti on ecological themes. Second prize ($3000) was awarded to the Forecasting Groundwater Regime to Prevent its Pollution. In the last few years, the waters of the Uman Reservoir suffered considerable damage from human actions. The project supported by the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences is designed to create an effective monitoring system to protect the reservoir.

The winner is the Ecological Hike Along the Main European Watershed. Its goal is to find and map places where national parks and nature preserves should be organized. The hike along the main Europe’s divide embraces the territory from Gibraltar to the Ural Mountains. The $7000 grant was given project head, Lviv-based Viktor Kolodensky.

“The number of projects participating in this year’s contest is evidence of the need to hold such programs in Ukraine,” says Judith Grubitz, international manager for the Ford’s ecology contest. “Although the number of projects receiving grants is limited, I believe every participant is a winner, since they all implement projects aimed at helping people and improving this world.”