A European city in the heart of Ukraine, a progressive city with great prospects - this is how Irpin, located in the Western region of Kyiv, can be described today. In just a few years, the city broke out of stagnation, became one of the leaders of socio-economic development in the Kyiv region, and became famous with a young management team strongly committed to rapid positive change throughout the country.
In August 2018, Mayor-reformer Volodymyr Karpluk, who set the pace of development of Irpen unprecedented before, resigned. Anastasia Popsui - Acting Mayor - Secretary of the Irpin City Council, Head of the Public Association "European Assembly of Women-deputies" took responsibility for the fate of the community and preserving the dynamics of the city's development.
It all starts with education
Anastasia Popsui was born on November 29, 1985 in Kyiv. She studied in secondary school №242 through the eighth class. She graduated from the Kyiv Lyceum of Business with a gold medal. In 2003 she was awarded the Best Graduate of the Year.
She received two high education degrees, both with a diplomas with honors: the first - National Pedagogical University named M.P. Drahomanov, specialty: teacher of Ukrainian language and literature, foreign literature, and literary editing; the second - University of Economics and Law «STEP», specialty: international economics and administrative management.
In addition to her Ukrainian education, she frequently studied abroad. In 2014, she studied effective governance in the USA through Program of American Councils for International Education “The Open World”. Remembering that period, Anastasia tells: “The US Council is an organization funded by the United States government and has many educational programs. One of them was for young reformers from Ukraine. We met with senators, mayors, various organizations that provide livelihoods of American cities to understand how their economic and political lives are organized, how processes are coordinated, how a public policy and financial system is working at the federal and local levels. They have very diversified, multi-level and flexible funding. It is different in different states. It was a big step for me - I had a completely different understanding of how to plan local work and coordinate it with state structures of different levels."
Two years ago, Anastasia Popsui attended an internship program in the European Parliament. "It was very important for us to see how the fate of the country is decided and what we need to focus on when we do small local businesses," she says. “ We need to be able to think globally, because we all live in the same world - and this internship has helped me to understand it. In that time I first met MEPs Rebecca Garms and Frank Schwalb, leaders of the German and European Party “Green”.
Within trainings and exercises Anastasia visited more than 100 educational institutions from different countries of Europe and the USA. She studied in foreign programs: Teacher’s Training Center (Poland, Nautov), Center of Civic Education (Germany, Baden Wüntenberg). And last year, she studied political science at Harvard Summer School in the United States. “For me, it was a total revolution of ideas about education. Before that, I traveled to a lot of schools, universities, foreign teacher’s training centers, in particular, in Europe, but only when I sat down at the desk, I felt a difference in approaches of teaching, - Anastasia says about her impressions. - It was a wonderful discovery for me how the educational process is going there. For example, how you can learn a great academic subject without a single lecture. Or how a teacher can moderate a class without giving ready information. I saw how effective and interesting it could be. Plus I had the opportunity to chat with a some interesting personalities - such as the Cambridge city mayor. This woman has been selected several times for this position because she has shown effective work. Only at Harvard, I discovered for myself many reasons of our problems in the post-Soviet period for studying the history of our country, realized the depth of our nation's uniqueness, our strength and our perspectives. Only there I really felt how I proud of Ukraine and Ukrainians".
Leader of the new formation
In 2017, the European Assembly of Women Deputies is headed by Anastasia Popsui in partnership with the International Women's Entrepreneurship Embassy and the Ukrainian Association of Women Deputies, funded by the Ministry of International Affairs of Canada through the Association of Ukrainian Cities and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, implemented national competitions in Ukraine, which have become important for the economic development of local communities.
Anastasia has participated in more than 100 seminars and conferences on the topic of European standards of living, local community development, leadership, and grant writing-just to name a few. She is the author of the training programs: “Eight life competences that are changing behavior”, “We are building the Future of Europe” and more. She has administered a lot of international projects. “The biggest project was international youth changes, funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland. We implemented it in the Foundation for Ukrainian-Polish Cooperation. For three years I coordinated this project. It was the largest in the country: 300 students and 300 teachers from Ukraine and Poland visited their neighbors as part of the program. These were representatives of towns and villages from the country”, Anastasia says. - Then I coordinated a project to create centers of environmental education in schools in Ukraine, funded by the USA Embassy. We have promoted the latest energy-saving technologies and created in the educational establishments cells with special equipment, like laboratories.”
National projects, that were started by Anastasia Popsui, continue. This year, the winners of competition “The best women's initiatives of Ukraine for democratic development of local communities” will travel to Brussels to work with MEPs and experts of European relations and gender. "We continue to cooperate with the Association Business of Ukraine and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, as this project is developed as educational, aimed on the development of local government," Anastasia added.
But the topic of education stays one of the most important for Anastasia Popsui. In 2018, she took part in the national TV project “New Leaders”, where she represented her initiative "Genius School", which won the most votes online voting. 
The country's success is happening on the local places
Since 2015, Anastasia Popsui has been working at the Irpin City Council, first as a Deputy Irpin Mayor Humanitarian Affairs, and later as a Deputy of the Irpin City Council, an advisor of the Mayor. And in 2018, she was elected as a secretary of the Irpin City Council.
Working as a Deputy Irpin Mayor, and later as an Advisor Mayor, She initiated the Strategic Plan for City Development 2016-2020, Investment Department of the City Council, City Brand, Investment Passport of the City of Irpin, “The Statute of the Local Community of the City of Irpin”, launched the Public Budget Program, started the Irpin Educational Initiative, facilitated the opening of the Community Center for Migrants. She began implementing medical and educational reforms in Irpin with the medical and educational experts. In the direction of medical reform in the city, with her persistence, four medical outpatients have been opened, antihypertensive center and a mammalogy center have been created, and a social housing program for doctors and educators has been developed, just to name a few examples. Within the educational reform, a center for children with special needs "Divosvit" was created, two communal kindergartens and the Irpin Lyceum of innovative technologies were opened, profile classes were established in schools, scholarship programs were introduced for local students, teacher training trips to Europe were started, and the City Council received a Peace Corps volunteer to work on extracurricular projects. 
The biggest reward is to see the happy rescued guys
The name Anastasia Popsui became known to Ukrainians during the Revolution of Dignity. At that time, she was she the head of the Charitable Foundation «Pryirpinnya Community», which provided financial and organizational support to protesters from the first day of the Maidan. After the bloody events in the Maidan and the death of Heavenly Hundred, several community and charitable organizations united to help to the victims. Organizations included: Ukrainian Philanthropists Forum, Euromaidan SOS, Partnership “For Every Child”, Foundation "Renaissance", Darina Zholdak’s Foundation, Caritas-Ukraine, Charitable Foundation «Pryirpinnya Community» and others.
On a volunteer basis, a like-minded group created a help center for families of the dead and victims on the Maidan, which includes several charitable foundations, private initiatives, lawyers and audit firms. The Charitable Foundation «Pryirpinnya Community» was selected as a partner organization and was given the technical and legal responsibility for execution of a charity program to help the families of the dead.
All decisions of the collection, distribution, and control of the funds were given to the Supervisory Board of the Initiative ("Maidan Family"). An Expert Council was also formed, consisting of representatives of the families of the dead and victims, representatives of the medical service of the Maidan, ministry staff, auditors from “Ernst & Young” and “PricewaterhouseCoopers”, and journalists (among them: a chief editor from the “Channel 5” who held a marathon to raise funds). The Expert Council approved the allocation of 20% of the collected funds for the treatment of the seriously injured people in the Maidan and decided not to provide financial support to the for families of the dead of Ministry of Internal Affairs representatives.
After a marathon organized by “Channel 5”, volunteers raised over 50 million UAH for the Charitable Foundation “Community Pryirpinnya”. The funds were not immediately dispersed, as the list of the Heavenly Hundred was still changing. As a result, the operating costs of the families of the dead were handled by the Rinat Akhmetov’s fund and Leonid Chernovetsky’s fund. The funds of the Charitable Foundation “Community Pryirpinnya” were distributed after the lists were clarified and the needs of each individual family were assessed.
17% of the collected funds in the form of taxes were paid to the state. This was after the Ukrainian Philanthropists Forum, in partnership with company “Ernst & Young”, tried to lobby for changes to the Tax Code of Ukraine to exempt charitable payments to individuals from income tax when it comes to paying victims' families and treating injured Maidan activists.
The delay of payments caused discontent among individual activists. They were supported by several people's MPs -regionals. The Organized Crime Control Board received a request to check the balance of the Fund's accounts. Volunteers were pressured to give money to Heavenly Hundreds, funerals and activists. They came to volunteers with machine guns. Philanthropists were forced to record a video-appeal to Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk to protect them from such pressure.
Later, Anastasia Popsui and the Charitable Foundation “Community Pryirpinnya” sued protection of honor and dignity against MPs who expressed their distrust to the Foundation without any obvious reasons.
“Despite all the difficulties and reputational risks, I am proud to have participated in the largest charity event in independent Ukraine. 104 families of the victims and 7 seriously injured received help, totaling 56 million UAH, ”Anastasia says. - I was recently invited to the wedding of one of the guys who we rescued after he was seriously injured on the Maidan. He wasn’t given a chance in Ukraine, but through the Charitable Foundation “Community Pryirpinnya” we took him to Israel for treatment. And now I'm extremely happy that at his wedding he danced and raised his beloved wife and then swayed his children.
Another activist from the Maidan, which was saved, is remembered. We responded in time and took him to Israel, where he underwent several major operations, followed by long rehabilitation. So we rescued a husband, a father of two children. He is a deputy of the Lutsk City Council now. I am sincerely glad to see the happy eyes of these people, photos of their family holidays, I am happy that they are alive, can see, walk, have arms and legs, that they are actively moving in life. For me, this is the biggest reward. "
"Everything will be Irpin!"
Anastasia Popsui, an expert in the field of education, regional and local government, a public figure, awarded the Honorable Mention of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine “For merit to the Ukrainian People”, has fully devoted herself to Irpin. She successfully copes with two positions - Acting the mayor and the secretary of the Irpin city council, and she is completely fine. She knows that she is not alone - she is part of a young, powerful management team of representatives of the party “New Faces”. This team with leader Volodymyr Karplyuk, has increased the city's development budget 32 times over in three years and built more than 200 infrastructure facilities, including kindergartens, family clinics, roads, sidewalks, parks and squares. This team has already proved to the whole country that Ukrainian cities can develop dynamically and be successful. “The roles have little changed, but we have a harmonized work, reliable people, a common goal, so everything will be fine,” Anastasia Popsui is convinced. - Everything will be Irpin! "» 