Ministry of Youth and Sports does not want to work with a wide range of civil society organizations. Instead of having to execute a court order, reassign contest of projects for public organizations and establish partnerships with youth and children’s organizations, heads of the Ministry refuse to open dialogue, sabotage changes and enter society into astray. Next – details.
Recall that this year Ministry of Youth and Sports, led by Dmytro Bulatov, made very scandalous and opaque competition for the selection of the best projects of youth and children’s organizations to fund. Public leaders did not agree and according to democratic procedure filed in court. As a result, on the 14th of October 2014 with significant participation in the process of Studrespublika and other brave — a victory!
What is the situation at the moment? «Unfortunately, we do not see assistance of the Ministry. There is information that they gather materials in the SSUagainst activists and the Ministry promotes this so that the Minister could use gathered materials against us, but we just defend the rights of the public»,— says Stanislav Kutsenko, representative of Ukrainian Student’s Association.
On this occasion, we present the opinion of Alla Nehriyenko, head of the All-Ukrainian public children’s motion «School of Safety», in fact, the claimant in the case of public organizations against Ministry of Youth and Sports: «Top-management of the Ministry does not want even to talk with leaders of youth and children’s organizations. The last example that we, children’s public organization, immediately after the trial, on 17th of October, appealed to the leadership of the Ministry with a proposal to establish relations and further cooperation to meet with the leaders of the youth and children’s organizations, and again the answer has not received. On sending numerous calls over the minister reception, his deputies we heard in reply that he was on vacation, a business trip, then at the meeting, but finally we were sent to book an appointment through the public reception. They do not want to hear, they do not want to see us!
By the way, in the calendar plan of the Ministry personally I read out very interesting things: it turns out, that the Ministry holds almost monthly a lot of national and international events for youth, about which youth have not even heard. And reports on the implementation of schedules and work plans of the Ministry we have not heard or seen on their official website».
I wonder, what about the opposition of Bulatov and Co. against public organizations, thinks the leadership of Ministry of Youth and Sports? Listen to the First Deputy Minister of Youth and Sports of Ukraine Andrii Vyshniak, who not only does not want to seek consent, but justify for the lost case, and as it turns out, he does not even know the material: «Unfortunately, representatives of Ministry had not been allowed to come to the court, because organizations that were against open competition, they created the conditions, they created pressure on the judge, they created pressure on the representatives of the Ministry, in which hosted such situation».
Instead, National Deputy of Ukraine Vitalii Iliashenko made a remark to Deputy Minister of Youth and Sports:«Bringing a case to court while interacting with youth organizations — a sign of poor communication between the Ministry and the youth».
The lawmaker recommended to the Ministry to pay special attention towards the patriotic education of youth: «The funds that were not used during the competition of projects this year should be sending to the patriotic education of youth through the way of holding directly by the Ministry patriotic summer camps». The politician asked Ministry of Youth and Sports to increase the budget of projects for the next year and to conduct in advance training courses for writing projects to improve their quality.
About the meeting of the Public Council of the Ministry of October, 31, where of course, was discussed the crisis situation in the state youth policy, said one of the leaders of Studrespublika Olexander Shcherba: «Andrii Vyshniak about the court case, said not about the plan of dialogue how to solve the conflict with civil society, but told again that… supposedly, public associations organized pressure on the court, because of what the judge called Vyshniak and allegedly, at the trial was an authorized representative of the Ministry, who has seen this pressure. Such frank come—offs I have not heard! In the interview with DAR-TV, he said that the representative of the Ministry was not allowed — and at the meeting of the Public Council said that the representative of the Ministry was there… In fact, there is a court order where indicated that on 14th of October there was no one from the Ministry, and after that they stupidly frostbite.If a European official became so tangled in lies, how would he done?!»
Unfortunately, in the leadership of Ministry of Youth and Sports we have a classical situation of abusing of power. Youth and children’s organizations shared into the correct – their and wrong — not their. To their — financial and organizational support, not to their — good words about the openness and transparency. But when it came up to the court, the officials do not disdain lies and even intimidation. We, the public, must stop this!»
«Too bad that positive changes did not happen in the work with civil society in Ukraine, at least in something that concerns youth. Lies, manipulation, falsification, we suspect that even corruption», — sums up the chairman of Student RepublicPavlo Viknyanskyy.