The very appearance four years ago of a dedicated charitable foundation, having as its main objective supporting Den’s initiatives and promoting them to the public, was an unprecedented event in the Ukrainian media scene. Never before had readers of a newspaper, and speaking more broadly, our society as a whole, initiated a dedicated organization that would support not only the newspaper, but also dozens of socially important projects it launched.
And now, having functioned for four years, the Foundation, led by its president Mykola Hrytsenko, is already perceived as a natural and essential “bridge” between Den’s team and active part of its readership. Meanwhile, the projects, launched by an organization that holds almost monthly volunteer events, clearly lend themselves to a book-length treatment. We will recall just a few of them here: winning subscribers for Den among schools, cultural institutions, libraries, NGOs; distributing Den on various means of transport, including international airlines; supporting distribution of history-themed books published in Den’s Library series, including supporting the “Give a Book to Your School” campaign; charitable support for Den’s new publishing projects; active volunteering in support of soldiers serving in the anti-terrorist operation area and the Ukrainian military in general; the traditional campaign “Intellectual Easter Basket”; co-organizing Den’s Days and photo exhibition tours across Ukraine as well as setting up a network of Den’s fan clubs; attracting new donors and patrons in Ukraine and abroad to support the newspaper’s educational projects, and dozens of other initiatives which can be looked at online under the heading “Foundation in Support of the Newspaper Den’s Initiatives”.
This foundation is still unique among Ukrainian media.
According to the initiators of the Foundation, the idea to create an organization that would promote Den’s highly socially important projects arose not four years ago, but much earlier. And finally, it came to fruition at the right time, just as the newspaper was holding a book launch in Lviv. Exactly four years ago, on December 7, 2012, the organization held its founding meeting. It approved the charter, elected the governing and supervisory boards and president of the Charitable Foundation in Support of the Newspaper Den’s Initiatives. In that way, long-term partners and friends of Den became a registered organization that took upon itself the ambitious and responsible task of becoming the amplifier for the messages and meanings spread by the newspaper.
“The idea of the Foundation arose when people who stayed in constant contact with Den felt that the newspaper had become more than just a newspaper,” Hrytsenko recalled. “It happened when it began to engage in social projects, like exhibitions, book publishing, the Summer School of Journalism, etc. And then, during a Publishers’ Forum in Lviv, Iryna Kliuchkovska, who was a member of the team of Den’s long-standing readers and contributors, asked the question: was it not the right time for us, the newspaper’s readers and sympathizers, to do something for it? This idea found support and we decided to create a dedicated entity, which we named accordingly ‘Charitable Foundation in Support of the Newspaper Den’s Initiatives.’ If the Ukrainians stop focusing on the pop culture, which, incidentally, has led to the degradation of society, and start prioritizing the quality segment of our culture, the country shall be healed. And speaking of that quality segment, Den handily beats any competition.”
The first event to be held by the Foundation was the “Intellectual Easter Basket.” The charity’s activists assembled Den’s books in Easter baskets and donated them to Kyiv’s secondary schools as well as educational institutions across the country. Subsequently, this event, like dozens of others, became traditional.
“Since the first months of the Foundation’s existence, I have actively cooperated with it. And to be frank, I have been getting great pleasure out of it,” said vice-president of the Charitable Foundation in Support of the Newspaper Den’s Initiatives, president of the Ukrainian-American company Golden Gate Ltd. Vasyl Kryvobok. “Over these four years, our Foundation has become an effective tool which propagates reason and enlightenment. As time goes by, I grow surer that I made the right choice when I joined a very noble and nationally important cause. You see, Den often acts as a substitute for government institutions, including its work on quality reassessment of history, culture, and media education of our citizenry, and raising the public’s intellectual level... In fact, the publication shows the way to a quality alternative; it shows that Ukrainian journalism, and our society in general, can live and work differently. This is probably the reason why the newspaper and its projects have enjoyed growing readership and membership. Meanwhile, the number of the Foundation’s activists is only growing. By the way, my daughter has followed me and become involved in its work. I am convinced that while our society obviously needed Den’s projects before, it just cannot do without them now. The Foundation’s guiding principle is to support the forces of reason and light and Den’s noble causes. Ineptitude is, unfortunately, quite abundant in Ukraine. It often manages to creep wherever it needs to. Some people bring their intelligence to shape the meanings which are produced and promoted by this newspaper. Accordingly, others, including members of the Foundation, must spread these ideas and offer financial support for them.”
Get involved with the Foundation and join its activists in expanding the territory of reason in this country!
