KAS Büro Ukraine Kiew

KAS Büro Kiew

European studies school in Charkiv, building up the dialogue platform between Ukraine and Republic of Armenia, workshop on presentation skills at universities, cultural project and a festival organization, development of inclusion project, round table on accommodation problems for youth – those are just a few ideas to name that are waiting for their realization after “I am a civil activist” seminar that took place on the 15^th-17^th of Febuary in Kyiv and gathered together 24 regional civic activist from Ukraine and 6 civil activists from Republic of Armenia. The event was organized in cooperation with the NGO “Ukraine student association”.

The project was conducted within the Eastern partnership program of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung office in Ukraine and has for its aim the best practices exchange between the civic activists from Ukraine and Armenia.

This year the main focuses of almost three days program were communication skills, project management, cooperation of civic activists with the state institutions, youth policy etc.

The head of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Office in Kyiv Ms. Gabriele Baumann emphasized in her speech on a great contribution of Ukrainian civil society to the reform implementation during the last five years. Meanwhile, the ambassador of Republic of Armenia to Ukraine Tigran Sairanian, for whom the participation in the event was the first official public appearance on this position in Ukraine, told about the effective work of Armenian civil society in development of anticorruption and justice reforms that are now happening in the country.

Together with the communication expert and coordinator of the energy innovations network Roman Sinchenko the participants learned the art of public speaking and how not to be afraid of it. The head of Lviv NGO “The ideas office” Mykhailo Yavorsky spoke about the effective cooperation between civil society and local authorities as well as the forms and mechanisms of such cooperation.  The expert on project management Liudmyla Samchuk explained the participants how to write a project proposal, fundraise and report donor organization on project conduction.

The group also visited the Reanimation Package of Reforms (RPR), an umbrella organization of Ukrainian civil society, and had a discussion with the regional coordinator Ivan Omelian and manager of international relations Georgii Bushuev. The RPR representatives spoke about the RPR structure and main mechanisms of work with the journalists, international organizations and deputies of Ukrainian parliament.   On the last event day the civil activists had also an opportunity to meet the national deputy Olena Sotnyk who is currently in charge of the youth wing of “Samopomich” political party. Ms. Sotnyk emphasized that the main aim of their work is civic education of young people. The youth wing conducted also a survey according to which the main problems for young people in Ukraine are work, salary, accommodation, migration, and education. That is why they try to address young people with the topics that fit these problems.

The separate panel discussion was devoted to the situation of civil society in Republic of Armenia. The representatives from Armenia spoke about general political situation after 2018 Armenian revolution, mass media and where civil society stays in all these topics. According to the USAID study from 2015 the Armenian civil society may be characterized as a mix of success and failures. 54% of citizens think that civil society in Armenia does not have influence. Moreover, in contradiction to Ukraine, the Armenian civil society enjoys a low level of trust. The main strengths of Armenia civil society are however good understanding of the main political problems, support from diaspora and work with social networks.

During the feedback session the participants agreed to work on the establishment of Ukraine-Armenia civil society platform.