EVENT

The chairman of the Kyiv Regional State Administration Anatolii Prysiazhniuk announced that the largest Ukrainian producer of tires — the private company Rosava — plans to build a tire recycling plant in the town of Bila Tserkva (Kyiv oblast). “We, together with the company’s management, are working on the program and will even cooperate in building the tire recycling plant,” Prysiazhniuk announced at a recent press conference. He informed that the project will cost between 30 and 50 million dollars, and that 1.5 to 2 years will be required for its implementation. Plant construction is planned to start in 2011.

Beginning in January 2011, the Little Angel magazine for pre-school visually-impaired children will be published in Ukraine. The publication, written in Braille, will come out each month, reports Ukrainska Pravda, citing the editors of the Land of Little Angels child­ren’s publishing group. In addition to carrying literary texts, the ma­ga­zine will help the young readers in learning to read and count. Material will be drawn from two sources: texts for reading will be taken from the Little Angel magazine, while various exercises will come from the Little Angel’s Teaching Manual. These materials are prepared by well-known contemporary children’s authors, child psychologists, educators and pedagogues (in line with the State Program of Pre-school Edu­cation). In addition, the magazines have sections devoted to introducing religion (just like the Scripture section in the Little Angel). “In Ukraine, the situation with children’s literature printed in Braille is simply disastrous!” complained Alevtyna Kozytska, an educator working with the No. 100 boarding school for visually-impaired children. According to her, “most books for the blind were published before Ukraine’s independence, the boarding school’s library has only 290 books, and even these are mostly in Russian. In 2010, we received only nine books, most of which contain poetry for adult readers. The most recent collection of children’s fairy tales was published as long ago as 2002. As for modern children’s books … there is simply nothing. There are only five institutions like ours in Ukraine, and their situation is similar,” Kozytska adds. Child psychologists and pedagogues, teachers of schools for visually-impaired children, experts in Braille, government departments and NGOs dealing with blind and visually-impaired people: all worked for a year to make this publication possible. Subscription to the Little Angel in Braille magazine will be possible at every post office in Ukraine from January. The subscription code is 49 663, in the post catalog.

The reconstruction of the Andriivsky uzviz will begin next spring, announced Serhii Bronevytsky, head of the Municipal General Plan Institute, reports LigaBusinessInform agency.

“We will be able to start the reconstruction next spring. Everything is ready: we have ordered project documents, the designers started working and will complete their tasks, tentatively, by the winter’s end,” he said. Bronevytsky added that as soon as it is done, they will be able to obtain permits and start working. “The situation with Kontraktova Square is more problematic. Before any works start, it must be free of the illegal kiosks installed there,” he said, adding that the reconstruction of Andriivsky uzviz and Kontraktova Square will include the replacement of the utilities infrastructure, road building, and the renovation of the buildings’ facades. In addition, a shopping mall will be built on Kontraktova Square, which is to be recreated based on the design of William Hastie, the famous early 19th century architect.