Ukraine: ICITAP-Trained Police Serving as Critical Lifeline to Rural Communities During COVID-19 Pandemic

On April 10, ICITAP-Ukraine reported on the March 2020 graduation of 57 ICITAP-trained Territorial Community Police Officers (TCPO), who were deployed to their assigned communities in Western Ukraine. There are now 191 active TCPOs working in five Oblasts across Ukraine, who are providing a critical lifeline of safety and security to citizens in rural communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Dnipro, TCPOs have joined with local organizations to hand out 3,000 hand-made face masks to high-risk members of their communities, including low-income and multi-member families, veterans, and the disabled. Other TCPOs have conducted inspections at local businesses like grocery stores for compliance with the quarantine safety measures and provided recommendations for how to manage social distancing of their customers. To ensure the health of the elderly who have been asked to stay at home, TCPOs in several different regions have worked with local social service workers to deliver medications, meal kits, and other supplies to the most vulnerable members of their communities. In the midst of the current quarantine restrictions, a TCPOs in the Kharkiv region partnered with a local family services organization to conduct welfare checks of vulnerable families to ensure the social isolation measures were not leading to further distress and harm in the family such as child abuse, domestic violence, or alcohol abuse. These are just a few examples of how TCPOs are demonstrating their commitment to the communities within which they work and live during this unprecedented crisis. In Ukraine, ICITAP manages the TCPO initiative with the support of and in coordination with the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL).