[CivilSoc] Partners Sought--F.P. Haaz Social Assistance Foundation, Odessa

[Center for Civil Society International]

			ON LEGAL ENLIGHTENMENT IN UKRAINE
Dear Sir/Madam,
We have the honour to present Doctor F.P. Haaz Social Assistance
Foundation--one of the first charitable organizations in the former
USSR, established in 1987.
In all, for thirteen years the Foundation provided charitable help
assessed at sum exceeding eight million U.S. dollars. But this
activity did not bring us nearer to the accomplishment of our object
-to create a welfare state. Preservation of virtual power monopoly by
former Soviet officials and resulting deep decline of the country is
the consequence of that nobody seriously taught Ukrainian people to
comprehend their rights, use them and protect them.
Therefore, the main direction of the Foundation's activity now is to
assist the legal reforming in Ukraine, in the first instance through
legal enlightenment of its population. Such a program is conducted
within the frame of the Foundation's establishment--the Institute of
Municipal Democracy and Human Rights (for detail about the activity
of the Foundation and the Institute, please see our web-site
http://haaz.com.od.ua/).
We would like to propose to your attention a joint program in order
to influence the wide sections of Ukrainian society. The corner stone
of the program is the creation of an independent media, as a tool for
tireless legal propaganda of the main principles of Law among the
population. Changes of law climate in the country would facilitate
the transformation of the structure of power, would help the
emergence of a really independent justice. That would become the best
guarantee for the foreign investors, too.
For our part, we are ready to participate in such a program with all
our intellectual, organizational and financial resources, to use the
accumulated experience of activity and existing programs on legal
enlightenment.
Yours,
Alexander Muchnik,
President of the Foundation
Email: <fsp@com.od.ua>