Maidan: A History of Making History

Maidan: A History of Making History

Since 2000 website “Maidan” operates as a civic initiative and is community driven.

Ukrainian online community formed in 2000 by activists united to protest the murder of independent journalist Georgiy Gongadze.

Maidan is a major on-line crowdsourced volunteer platform for and by activists

http://world.maidanua.org

Involvement140.000 readers of our website monthly

30 NGO members – core editors and speakers

300 dedicated activists (newsmakers and authors) contributing continuously

8000 activists coming occasionally for particular campaigns

60 NGOs contributing continuously

340 NGOs contributing occasionally for particular campaigns

Contributors are from all regions of Ukraine, 16 countries of Europe, Americas and Australia

20% stay with us since 2000. 50% of our community joined in 2004. Recent growth of civic activity reflected in broadening of our community. http://world.maidanua.org

Maidan’s Network


Network graph shows 300 dedicated Maidan’s contributors staying with us for years.

Maidan’s MissionProtection, promotion, and expansion of human rights and civil freedoms

Because of our dedication to verifying all reports and news, our organization is unique on an international scale.

We fulfill our mission by means of:Capacity building – via popular website, books, movies, press conferences, seminarsStrictly verifying each piece of information for accuracy and legalityCivic lobbyingMonitoring of the government activitiesLegal defense of constitutional rightsFacilitating civic dialogue


Our Strategic Goals To encourage proactive access to information by citizens To increase citizens’ intolerance to violations of human

rights and civil freedoms To involve citizens into the crowd-sourced monitoring of

observance of political rights and civil freedoms To encourage citizens’ participation in active forms of

peaceful protest actions To encourage responsible, trustworthy, persuasive citizen

journalism

We provide expertise and perspective on Ukraine and the unique threats to democracy in Ukraine. http://world.maidanua.org

Maidan’s Story‘Maidan’ is a Ukrainian word for ‘square’ - an open area in a town.

Since the Orange Revolution on Independence Square in Kyiv in 2004 the word acquired a broader meaning becoming a synonym for public protest. We introduced this synonymic meaning on our website in Dec 2000.

•Dec 2000 - Maidan was created as the official website of "Ukraine without Kuchma" rallies on Maidan (Independence Square) in Kyiv, 250.000 publications since•Since 2005 our community assumed a name Maidan Alliance and created a formal association•2012 we created a legal entity - NGO “Maidan Monitoring Information Center”

Site gets 120.000+ visitors per month for the last 8 years.

Most of our visitors are dedicated activists. Our projects traditionally involve hundreds of volunteers


Not Just Another SiteMaidan operates under public website information policy adopted by consensus of newsmakers. We foster and encourage by means of expert dialogue, capacity building and open exchange of knowledge:

Protests, lawsuits, campaigns against human rights and civil freedoms violations and illegal actions of governmentCitizens’ efforts to organize and cooperate to defend their rights and civil freedomsIllegal actions of government authoritiesFreedom of informationHistory of dissent and movements for independencePresenting news of civic activism in Ukraine to English speaking readers

Maidan was featured on TV Channel 5, Channel 24, TVi, foreign media: France24, Voice of America, National Public Radio (USA). http://world.maidanua.org

Crowdsourced News2004 – Maidan - the main communication hub for Orange Revolution activists. Volunteers reported more news than any information agency – up to 1500 a day. Monitors aggregated election reports from 30 countries70 cars patrolled election precincts in Kyiv and coordinated actions via siteOur news were used in the Supreme Court when settling election dispute

During the day of parliamentary election (October 28, 2012) we had 75.000 visitors a day and worked despite severe DDoS attack involving botnet of 40.000 computers

During this crucial time Maidan handled immense amount of information. It was a time of success and challenges alike. We learned our lessons and gradually developed and implemented strict rules for verifying each piece of news prior to publishing it.Max traffic ever: 500.000 visitors a day 23 November 200430 editors were working with data flow


Crowdsoursed BooksMaidan published 4 crowdsourced books, dedicated to history of dissent during USSR regime.

1.Books are created on our forum. 2.Topic is announced and people are starting asking questions. Anyone could participate.3.We find the experts.4.Experts provide the answers on forum.5.Further discussion allows to word the answers in more interesting and persuasive way.6.The final text and photos are published in a book. 7.We finance the publications ourselves.

Latest book (2012) is “Underground church in totalitarian state”.


Pioneering Access to Government dataSince 2005 - the campaign to declassify the secret documents of government that eventually led to a decrease in the number of acts illegally classified. 2007 - President’s acts that obviously included corruption activities were declassifiedSince 2008 – Right to know portal dedicated to information rights in Ukraine and abroad; improving the information laws2009 – State Management Agency revealed it’s budget2011 - Parliament revealed its expenditures 2012 – We have 3 cases in European Court on Human Rights

Maidan pioneered open access to information issue since 2005. It’s largely to Maidan’s efforts that civil sector pressure in this regard led to the passing of law. http://world.maidanua.org

Civic Lobbying2006 - campaign to compare electoral promises and voters’ expectations (we confirmed scientifically they do not match)2006-2007 – contributed to successful campaign demanding President to dismiss corrupt Parliament2006-2007 - the campaign of non-partisan candidate for the office of Human Rights Commissioner. He was nominated officially. We engaged 340 NGOs.2011-2012 – successful campaign against non personal voting of Ukrainian Members of Parliament 2011-2012 – successful campaign against attempts of state censorship over the Internet

Our main lobbying focus now is the improvement of legislations implementing the right to free assembly. http://world.maidanua.org

Monitoring FreedomsSince 2011: We monitor the observance of civic rights and freedoms in Ukraine. We try to attract attention of citizens to cases of violations and to make the government to observe the rights in reality, not only in constitutional declarations.

4 regional prosecutor’s offices acted on our requests to invalidate illegal rulings restricting peaceful assembly.

The total number of violations published on interactive map as for April 2013 is 273.

Our focus now is •freedom of peaceful assembly•freedom of expression •freedom of information•freedom of speech•freedom of conscience

We prepared two policy papers, a chapter for annual report “Human rights in Ukraine 2012”


Monitoring Elections2012. Interactive crowd-sourced map of violations of electoral law. Citizen reports were added to the map only accompanied by photo and/or video evidence and after verification by law experts. We observed the systemic violations.

Parliamentary election in Ukraine were held on October 28, 2012.

1637 complaints regarding violations of the electoral law were added to the interactive map. The total number of violations reported to the project team was 7062.

Software and experience will be used for monitoring next elections. We monitor elections since 2004.

476 volunteers reported from 421 locations.

Together with ombudsman we made the Central Election Commission to add warning signs about cameras not observing the voting booths.

Maidan Reload 3dExpert discussions are broadcast live via Youtube.

Connecting people online and offline (see next slide)

High technology wide area conferencing pioneered by Maidan in 2013 to facilitate and coordinate discussions via live events, forums and video conferencing.


Maidan Reload 3d


People in a club talk directly to people in other cities and countries.

The topics of debates are usually not mainstream in the media.

March 19, 2013. Kharkiv. The debate topic is “Whether the social media have impact on the government in Ukraine”. Most say they do.

Sources of FundingMost Maidan’s activities are traditionally funded by the members including our regular information work.

Currently Maidan projects are supported by contributions of members and the International Renaissance Foundation.

We were also getting funding from:International Renaissance Foundation (since 2004)National Endowment for Democracy (2004-2005)USAID (with Freedom House) (2007)European Commission (2009-2011)

Sometimes we announce fundraising and our site’s visitors respond with contributions. Last call was in 2011 to raise money to cover expenses for filming the memoirs of survivors of Soviet Gulag.


Maidan’s Budget 2012

Contributions of members in 2012 amounted to 57%, grants by the International Renaissance Foundation 42%, other 1%.

Project TotalFees and honoraria

Volunteer work

Mail and office supplies Services

Equipment

Communication

Printed materials

Travel expense Funding

Maidan site 4 036 36 152 305 3 691 2 229 VolunteersMaidan forum 795 8 343 VolunteersRight to Know 265 2 781 Volunteers

Government and Society 136 1 423 VolunteersElection 2012 3 063 6 298 282 19 850 IRF 1 784 2 629 Volunteers

1 238European Parliament

57Vinnytsya community

29Ternopil community

Monitoring 2 626 7 229 1 825 12 396 IRF 4 190 1 935 VolunteersTotal 114 665 13 526 54 674 2 107 32 246 4 869 3 691 2 229 1 324

Volunteer work contributions are amounted only for those contributing daily not less than 1 hour a day, €8 per hour. Volunteers equipment contribution accounted for actual time used for projects. Amounts – in Euro.


MemberMember

How we get volunteers to contribute permanently?

We are drawing resources to our members thus earning their loyalty and continuous contribution. http://world.maidanua.org

NGONGO

MoneyMoney

Social capitalSocial capital

Visibility

Confidence

Knowledge

Earns more

Boosts

The TeamMaidan is a network of experienced human rights activists, law, psychology, communication and IT experts, journalists and technically savvy concerned citizens. We do care about the validity of information and never engage in infotainment.

Throughout all of it's history Maidan has been bringing together civil activists and experts from Ukraine and abroad dedicated to strengthening democracy in Ukraine.

We set our own style. We telecommute for 12 years. No formal office ever, we do not need it.

Our NGO members live in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Odesa, Simferopol, Ternopil, Kremenchuk, Donetsk, Olexandria, Ukraine; USA and Canada.


Contact MaidanVolodymyr Khanas, Ternopil, UkrainePhone: +380 96 210 4076Email: [email protected] Twitter: @khanasv

Vitaly Ovcharenko, Donetsk, UkrainePhone: +380 66 271 6085Email: [email protected] Twitter: @vital_ovchar

Yuriy Lukanov, Kyiv, UkrainePhone: +380 50 353 6789Email: [email protected] Skype: yurluk2007

Natalka Zubar, Kharkiv, UkrainePhone: +380 50 401 23 83Email: [email protected] Skype: nelliza111

Our site in Ukrainian http://maidanua.orgMaidan highlights: http://top.maidanua.org http://world.maidanua.org

Oleksiy Kuzmenko, Washington, DC Phone: 202 549 20 68Email: [email protected] Skype: oleksiykuzmenko

News & Politics

Maidan: A History of Making History