The Foundation for Democracy Assistance is a Ukrainian non-governmental organization dedicated to building civil society in Ukraine, protecting human rights, developing democratic processes, and supporting international efforts to advance democracy.
The Foundation’s primary objectives are:
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developing democracy and civil society in Ukraine;
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increasing citizens’ trust in democratic institutions and processes;
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promoting civic engagement and citizen participation in public affairs;
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protecting human rights, raising awareness of human rights and fundamental freedoms;
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defending freedom of speech and justice, countering political manipulation;
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effective personal development;
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enhancing media literacy, countering disinformation and propaganda;
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improving the legal and political education of Ukrainians;
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creating a system of alternative media as a crucial tool for shaping public opinion.
The Foundation has been operating nationwide since 2005 and conducts its activities primarily in Kyiv and Lviv. The Foundation’s project partners have included the Jarl Hjalmarson Foundation (Sweden), the German foundations Friedrich Ebert and Friedrich Naumann. Since 2012, the Foundation has been a partner of the SALLUX Foundation (Netherlands), and since 2019, of the Hanns Seidel Foundation in Ukraine (Germany) and FICCD (Netherlands).
Until 2019, the official name was Foundation for Support of Democratic Initiatives.
The Foundation’s activities include:
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organizing and conducting educational events such as seminars, lectures, and workshops;
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publishing materials aimed at educating society and verifying information;
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publishing books;
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creating and maintaining diverse informational resources;
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developing projects to improve the socio-political situation in Ukraine;
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studying Western experience in these areas;
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protecting the democratic freedoms of citizens and organizations from attempts by political actors to exploit them for their own interests.
To develop democratic society and promote its democratization, we have launched several projects aimed at helping citizens better understand political processes.
We do this by promoting principles such as freedom, human rights, and personal development, while supporting critical analysis and argumentation skills in various fields, including politics, law, and media literacy.
One of our most important projects is
InfoLight.UA, which implements educational programs to enhance media literacy and combat fake news and propaganda. In the future, our project will be implemented in other countries working on similar issues of disinformation, political manipulation, and censorship.
The “Blogger School. Blogging in Wartime” project consists of training seminars for bloggers who want to become thought leaders by providing them with the skills required in modern media. Blogging during wartime is an important tool that can help obtain truthful information about events in the country. Through it, powerful volunteer projects are implemented, providing psychological rehabilitation and a new communication environment for those affected by war.
In 2020, in partnership with the Hanns Seidel Foundation in Ukraine, the “School of Socio-Political Education” project was launched. In 2021, within this collaboration, the “Political Education Course for Conscious Citizens” project was launched. Their goal is to promote awareness of the dynamics of contemporary political processes and educate people capable of properly understanding them. The course was developed to help citizens better understand their rights and responsibilities regarding political participation, as well as to provide knowledge about how political and electoral processes work.
The idea behind the “School of Socio-Political Education” project was an educational program on basic political ideologies—conservatism, liberalism, and social democracy. A series of online lectures on these topics was conducted, online interviews with representatives of these movements were organized, and a video about political ideologies in general was produced. Three brochures on these topics and a booklet with schematic representations of the core values of these basic ideologies, expressed in infographics, were published. In 2021, the School of Socio-Political Education began exploring new ideological directions—Christian democracy, feminism, libertarianism, and green ideology. For each of these ideological movements, 3–4 sessions were conducted.
The “Political Education Course for Conscious Citizens” is intended to develop civic education programs in schools and universities and to provide a new generation of thoughtful and responsible citizens with immunity against populism, nepotism, corruption, Byzantine practices, and Russian imperial obscurantism.
The course covered:
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European practices regarding the relationship between citizens, society, and the state.
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The value foundations of the European Union and European civilization.
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Principles of conscious and responsible citizenship
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The functioning of the political system under democracy
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The functioning of state authorities
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The role of parties in the life of citizens and the state
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How the institutions of the European Union are structured
