The School of Social and Political Education project began its life as a joint project of the Democracy Promotion Foundation and the Hanns Seidel Foundation in Ukraine in October 2020.
The idea behind the project was a curriculum on basic political ideologies – conservatism, liberalism, and social democracy. A series of online lectures on these topics were held, online interviews with representatives of these movements were organized, and a video about political ideologies in general was produced, as well as three brochures on these topics and a booklet with a schematic representation of the core values of these basic ideologies expressed in infographics. The lectures were posted on the project’s YouTube channel.
The distinctive features of the publications are:
- The methodology of writing is the history of ideas.Ideologies, their history and programs are considered in the context of unique local situations, which create a certain corridor of possibilities and at the same time create limitations. This methodology allows for the easiest possible communication of the material to the reader and brings the brochures closer to the popular nonfiction today.
- Identification of cases based on a particular ideology.The presence of cases allows us to explain complex theoretical ideologies and the variability of the political process with concrete examples.
- Bright design.Bright and unusual design is one of the most striking trends in book publishing today. According to marketers working in the book market, this design allows them to attract readers in the face of an excessive supply of products.
In 2021, the School of Social and Political Education began to consider new ideological directions – Christian democracy, feminism, libertarianism, and green ideology. For each of these ideological trends, 3-4 classes were held.
In particular, thematic online interviews were conducted with well-known representatives of these ideologies:
- on the topic of Christian democracy with Professor and Head of the Department of Political Science at the Ukrainian Catholic University Yurii Pidlisnyi;
- on feminism – with Vira Ageeva, a professor at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and Shevchenko Prize winner;
- on the topic of libertarianism – with Natalia Melnyk, Director of the Bendukidze Center for Free Economy;
- on the topic of green ideology – with Oleksiy Vasylyuk, head of the Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group.
As a complementary program, we have also launched a series of interviews with prominent people on the topic “History of Ukraine’s Successes and Failures. To the 30th Anniversary of Independence”, which has already been attended by Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine, Professor of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy Volodymyr Vasylenko and dissident, head of the Ukrainian Association of Advocates for Democracy, member of the First of December initiative Joseph Zissels.
We have also prepared videos on conservatism, Christian democracy, and the figure of the famous German politician Hans Seidel, after whom a well-known political foundation is named.
The objectives of the videos are:
- Filling the empty niche of Ukrainian video content – information about ideologies.
- Familiarizing the Ukrainian audience with the ideology of conservatism and Christian democracy.
- Dissemination of information about Hans Seidel in Ukraine
In 2021, brochures were published on Christian democracy, feminism, libertarianism, and green ideology.
Each brochure has its own unique design.
During the course of our project, we identified a number of people who were ready to cooperate more actively.
At the first stage, we identified about 10 people whom we called “Friends” of the School of Social and Political Education. They wanted to be more active and were ready to help develop the project. Most of them tried themselves as project moderators. A new group of them, mostly university professors, stood out, who were interested in trying themselves as lecturers in the project or even organizing the multiplication of the project experience in their communities. We have engaged the most active ones to work in our projects as lecturers.
We want to hold a summer training session to prepare lecturers, moderators and trainers who will be able to significantly expand our project thematically, content-wise and qualitatively to a new look in the Platform for Social and Political Education.
