Kyiv’s Ukraine House hosted on July 8 the second congress of the Known Ukraine Mission, a national non-governmental organization founded on June 2, 2001, on the initiative of prominent politicians, businesspeople, cultural figures, scientists, and athletes. The organization, with Ukraine’s first President Leonid Kravchuk elected as its director, declares its main goal to spread factual information about Ukraine on all continents and building a new positive image of the young Ukrainian state on the international stage. The mission believes this goal can be achieved by closely cooperating with foreign information channels, engaging international public relations companies to overcome negative Western stereotypes, and inviting broad circles of Ukrainian society to create Ukraine- related positive information products, popularize the mission’s ideas and program targets. Also in the works is more active cooperation with Ukraine’s regions.
The mission’s first step was inviting the Austrian companies M.I.P. and Troon Fields to carry out a comprehensive survey of Ukraine’s international image in nineteen countries. The results were not very encouraging, to put it mildly. Most of those polled characterized Ukraine as “an unknown country.” Moreover, Europeans steadily conjure up a negative stereotype of Ukraine: many associate our state with such words as “corruption,” “poverty,” “Mafia,” and “shadow economy.” Yet, more than 62% of the respondents used the word “independence,” a pleasing fact indeed. Many believe that our state pays insufficient attention to the quality of its international image, for over 77% of the polled complain they know too little about Ukraine.
The congress noted that a number of functions had now been carried out as part of the action program: for example, the mission has set up its own website, taken part in The Days of Ukrainian Culture in Switzerland, in the Ukraine in Focus photo contest, and presented a photo exhibition.
The organization is now funded by means of charitable and other related donations from the enterprises and organizations that actively support market oriented transformation in Ukraine and defend our national interests worldwide. This has allowed the mission to accumulate UAH 5,550,000 in its accounts and utilize this money to carry out its declared functions.
Mission committee chairman Oleksandr Shnypko said the organization’s main achievement in its first year of operation was the experience that helped to identify both long and short-term actions to implement the projects planned. In particular, it is planned, from July 2002 until December 2003, to publish a thematic journal on Ukraine’s investment attractiveness for foreign commercial company executives, to encourage international tourism to Ukraine by organizing a tour for foreign journalists on the staff of influential Western European tourist publications, to manufacture Ukrainian view posters for foreign representations, to hold a contest for the best image television film on Ukraine, etc.
