Maidan Monitoring Information Center is a non-government non-profit civic organization that cares for societal security in Ukraine, which is achieved through public dialogue, improving the culture of communication and reducing the level of violence in society.
The organization was officially registered on November 23, 2012, however our story starts on December 19, 2000 by the publication of this website on the Internet, which was originally named “Maidan”.
“Maidan” is the term, which we had consciously and purposefully introduced into political vocabulary.
Our Vision
(Visualised by the General Assembly in October 2019)
The Ukraine we want to live in is a free country of free people with a protected individual liberty and protected rights, in which the state can intervene minimally, only in exceptional cases, which are listed exclusively and legally.
In the year 2039 we see Secure Ukraine as a country, where:
- Society is ready for challenges and threats to collective and individual rights through public dialogue
- People respect the right to privacy
- People work together for public safety
- People want and can learn life-long
- People observe agreements
- The culture of the middle class is formed and became dominant
- Government institutions practically demonstrate the highest value of human rights and care for reducing violence
- There is effective and accessible justice
- Public institutions adhere to clear, stable and understandable rules, procedures and protocols.
- There are available sources of objective information about the activities of government institutions
- Citizens are involved in the development, adoption, implementation and monitoring of government decisions.
- Environmental safety is the subject of constant and practical attention by the legislative and executive authorities, local self-government bodies and public organizations.
- Energy security is one of the pillars of public policy, coupled with robust defense and the ability to effectively counter terrorist threats.
- NATO standards implemented and full NATO membership achieved
And our mission is to motivate people to learn and pursue their vision.
Our Objectives
- “Away from Moscow!’ © Mykola Khvylovy (read more about the history of this slogan)
- Demarcation of mental border between Ukraine and Russian Federation. Read how we are doing it.
- Promotion of nonviolent communication methods
- Fostering Ukrainian patriotism via civic education
Our Target Audience
- Universities
- Schools
- War veterans and their families
- Active internally displaced persons
- Associations of volunteers
- State institutions
- Political parties
- Civic organizations
- Scientists
Our People
The organization unites 50+ members who live in 12 regions of Ukraine including Crimea, in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, the USA and Canada and 750+ volunteers all over Ukraine and the world.
We are physicists, software engineers, lawyers, political scientists, psychologists, sociologists, historians, culturologists, linguists, system administrators, engineers, journalists, security professionals, anthropologists, entrepreneurs, economists, managers, educators, geophysicists, biologists and criminologists. 16 members have academic degrees.
The oldest of us was born in 1949, the youngest was born in 2000.
We speak Ukrainian, Polish, English, Czech, Slovenian, Slovak, Croatian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Belarussian, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Hebrew and Arabic.
Our Contacts
- Nataliya Zubar (Kharkiv, Ukraine), Chair, panimaidan@gmail.com
- Marcin Żmudzki (Falls Church, Virginia, USA) — USA representative, IT consultant; Polish language translator, interpreter, teacher; Polish community activist, Call/text: +1 (202) 421-6172, marcin@zmudzki.net
- Adam Sybera (Kyiv, Ukraine) – adam.sybera@gmail.com (Advocacy & Public outreach, StratCom office)
- You can see more contacts of English speaking here
- Our HQ is located in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
Our Current Projects
The main functional directions of Maidan Monitoring Information Center are monitoring, education and communication.
Russian War Crimes Documentation
Starting March 10 2022 the team of Maidan Monitoring Information Center documents Russian war crimes in Kharkiv city and region. We focus on destruction of Ukrainian civil infrastructure by the Russian munition.
We are making photos and videos as a part of criminal investigations in cooperation with Ukrainian State institutions. Sometimes we are finding the objects, damaged by the airstrikes, accidentally and got to the crime scenes first before the firefighters and before the criminal proceedings are initiated.
The project was launched as a result of a personal experience of a Secretary of our organization Serhiy Petrov, read more – Countering Russian aggression with a camera and continued by our Chair Nataliya Zubar, read more Ukrainian Woman Has Footage She Hopes Will Be Used In War Crime Trials
Information Security School
Since 2014, we have been helping people, organizations and institutions counter specific information operations to preserve their integrity.
Since 2018, together with partners from the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland, we have organized trainings on information and cyber security, data protection and shared the positive experience from Ukraine in these countries.
Since 2020, to counter Russian propaganda we have developed and implement the technology of creating information self-help groups.
Public Finances Monitoring
Study and transfer of Polish experience of public finance control in cooperation with the Supreme Audit Chamber of Poland (NIK.gov.pl) – under the cooperation agreement of October 24, 2014.
22 members and partners of our organization received certificates of successful completion of public finance audit courses in the NIK training center in Poland in 2015-2017. NIK experts participated in our educational projects in Ukraine in 2014-2019.
A detailed report on one of these courses organized by MMIC together with NIK is here (in Ukrainian) Anti-development interest groups and systemic pathologies – MM and NIK seminar in Poland.
We consider the monitoring and audit of public finances as a powerful tool for building a Secure Ukraine, increasing trust and responsibility in Ukrainian society.
We also walk dogs ©
Our Statutory Goals
Major statutory goals of “Maidan Monitoring” Information Center are:
- facilitating the implementation and defense of constitutional rights and freedoms;
- assisting in development of democratic civil society and the rule of law thru the education of people
- facilitating the development informational infrastructure of civic society in Ukraine;
- facilitating and improving the social dialog between the government authorities, civic activists, NGOs and business in the area of defense of constitutional rights and freedoms;
- facilitating access to information and knowledge about the constitutional rights and freedoms;
- facilitating access of citizens to participation in governance.
Our Statute in English MMIC_statute_eng
Our History
Milestones
- Official information website of “Ukraine without Kuchma” protest action – since December 19 2000.
- Documentation of protest actions – since 2000.
- Defence of political prisoners – since 2001.
- Promotion of Civic Journalism in Ukraine – since 2001.
- Civic advocacy campaigns – since 2002.
- Communication platform of activists of civic movements – since 2002.
- Civic protection of societal security in Ukraine – since 2005.
- Social transformation strategies development – since 2005.
- The struggle for access to information about government activities – since 2005.
- Socio-psychological research – since 2006.
- Monitoring of observance of constitutional freedoms – since 2007.
- Education of adults – since 2014.
- Public finances monitoring – since 2015.
- War crimes documentation – since 2022.
Legislative Initiatives
We contributed to the development and adoption of the laws:
- “On access to public information” (2011)
- “On ensuring the rights and freedoms of internally displaced persons” (2014), the detailed history in Ukrainian is here .
The draft of the law “On the protection of Ukrainian statehood from the manifestations of collaborationism” was officially submitted to the Parliament in 2017, but not adopted. The law on the similar topic was adopted in March 2022 and was largely inspired by the draft we contributed to.
Brief History of “Maidan” Website
The “Maidan” website was founded as an official information source of the Ukraine without Kuchma protest action in December 2000. Since then it existed as the pulse of nonviolent civic resistance in Ukraine.
In 2004, during Orange Revolution, the Maidan site was the main source of news on protests with up to 1500 news pieces published in a day. The term Orange Revolution was published first in the Maidan forum. The Maidan Forum was the main coordination hub of peaceful protest.
In 2005 thru the open collaborative consensual procedure dozens of maidan contributors authored via website a fundamental policy paper of Maidan Alliance – the Maidan Memorandum– the only public policy paper drafted as an outcome of Orange Revolution. The Memorandum contains a list of practical tasks aimed at overcoming post-totalitarianism in Ukraine, affirming the principle that “the authorities answer to the people, society exerts control over the authorities”, defence, affirmation and broadening of rights and freedoms, and the rule of law.
Since May 2014 Maidan website informs mostly of current activities of Maidan Monitoring Information Center and serves as an official website of our NGO.
Human rights focus
We focus on monitoring and affirming the right to access the information about the government activities as a basic human right .
Since 2011 we focus on monitoring the political freedoms in Ukraine – freedom of peacful assembly, freedom of information, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of conscience. Our monitoring map is available here.
Watchdog activities
We have co-authored (with Kharkiv Humar Rights Protection Group) annual report “Human rights in Kharkiv region” (2005) (funded by National Endowment for Democracy and IRF) and the chapter on Freedom of Peaceful Assembly in the 2012 and 2013 Annual Report “Human Rights in Ukraine”.
We Monitored:
- the accountability of Kharkiv city council when making the decisions about new constructions (2007) (funded by Freedom House),
- illegally classified acts of government (since 2005) (funded by members),
- the right to access the information about government activities (since 2005) (funded by members and IRF), – last summary
- the completeness and access to information on governmental websites (since 2010) (funded by IRF)
- the implementation of President’s Yushchenko decree that banned the totalitarian symbols and toponymy (2011) (funded by members)
- the practice of non personal voting of Ukrainian Parliament (2011) (funded by members)
- the implementation of constitutional right to freedom of assembly (2011) (funded by members) – summary
- the observance of political rights by the government authorities (2012) (funded by members and IRF)
- the implementation of electoral law during the Parliamentary election (2012) (funded by members and IRF) – one page summary
- the observance of right to peaceful assembly and free expression by the government authorities (2012) (funded by members and IRF)
- Violations of human rights in Crimea (before, during and after “referendum of 16 March 2014”) (funded by members, citizens of Ukraine and IRF)
- the implementation of electoral law during the President’s election (2014) (funded by members, citizens of Ukraine and IRF)
- Discrimination in Ukraine (2014-2016) – (funded by the European Commission, Microsoft)
- Donbas 2015 Mission – Monitoring of a number of cities in Eastern Ukraine (2015) (within a coalition project Ukrainian Peacebuilding School, funded by the British Embassy in Ukraine)
- the implementation of the system of electronic declarations in Ukraine (2016-2017) (funded by members)
Previous educational projects
Social Intermediaries School
Since 2014, we have been training practitioners in the management of socio-political conflicts in Ukraine using our own methodology, including the practices of social transformations of Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany and Israel.
Free University “Maidan Monitoring”
Since 2014, we have been organizing, discussing and broadcasting online popular science lectures in Kharkiv from Kharkiv, and not only, scientists and researchers from different fields of science and technology. You can watch the recordings of the lectures on our Youtube channel (link to a playlist)
Ukrainian Family Club “Movograj”
Since 2018, parents, together with their children, communicate, study, develop, play and relax in the Ukrainian-speaking environment in Kharkiv.
Ukrainian Peacebuilding School
Since 2014, together with our partners and alumni, we have been organizing interaction between civil society organizations, local and state government, business, Ukrainian and international experts in conflict management and human capacity development in local communities of Ukraine.
Dissemination of Good Communication Practices
IN 2018-2020, we had been creating and disseminating good practices for voluntary cooperation for community security in order to move closer to the EU’s life quality standards and NATO’s civilian protection policy under the Platform for Nonviolent Activism together with Kurve Wustrow.