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The project "Students for Parliament" has been started in 1997.
Area of distribution - Kyiv
Donor: NED
The project "Students for local government" has been started in 2002.
The area, where the program is distributed:
- Central Ukraine: Chernigov, Cherkassy, Vinnytsa, Kirovograd, Zhytomyr
- South Ukraine: Sevastopol, Simferopol, Odessa, Mykolayiv, Kirovohrad
- Eastern Ukraine: Donetsk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhya, Luhansk, Dnipropetrovsk, Dniprodzerzhynsk
- Western Ukraine: Ternopil, Lviv, Chernivtsi, Uzhgorod, Krements, Drogobych, Ivano-Frankivsk
The purpose of internship programs:
- To prepare a new generation of politicians, administrators and managers for Ukraine and Countries Eastern Partnership;
- To provide for MPs / staff of the authorities expert help from young professionals;
- To help young people to study and explore the legal system and regulatory framework;
- To ensure access for young people to objective information on the activities of Parliament, local governments ;
- To be launching pad for young people into their career life;
- To form parliamentary and local government candidates pool among persons, who have been trained;
- To top up qualifications and skills of youth;
- To promote openness of the government, establishing contacts between the government and the community (youth). Use training of young people as an effective mechanism for transparency and accountability of government and its cooperation with the public;
- To enhance the interaction between voters and politicians ;
- To create database of active young concerned people. To maintain contact with graduates of the program;
- To establish relationships between members of the young generation in all regions of Ukraine by continuously mixing the participants during the training;
- To establish contacts and to stimulate the creation of such programs is Central Europe
Focus areas:
- Administering of internships in government;
- Support relationships and cooperation with interns;
- Ensuring effective collaboration of youth and youth associations with state and local authorities;
- Collaboration with other internship programs, research centers ,youth NGOs in Ukraine and abroad ;
- Realization of studying for interns: workshops, trainings, roundtables, research, etc.;
- Conducting research of policies at national and regional levels;
- Conducting research on current human rights issues, youth policy, environment, gender equality, etc.;
- Development creativity, skills, self-organization, self-identity of young people the ability to assert their rights
- Realization of innovative potential of young people on behalf of social development and the development of young people
Results / Accomplishments:
Participation in professional internship is a powerful impulse for graduates’ career. During internship young professionals practice the knowledge obtained in universities, study the process of lawmaking, get invaluable experience of making the legal and political decisions. It helps them to continue their professional, political career, scientific and research activities, work in the business structures.
For 15 years, about 3,000 students have been trained during projects of Youth Alternative. To this date, three former interns are MPs of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. They are Pavlo Rozenko (“UDAR"), Lesya Orobets (“Batkivshchyna”), Vyacheslav Kyrylenko (“Batkivshchyna”).
After the internship, interns continue their careers:
- 35% of interns continue their studying in higher school.
- 20% of interns work in government institutions;
- 7% of interns work in commercial organizations;
- 15% of interns work in international organizations;
- 6% of interns work in research centers;
- 7% of interns work in the public sector;
- 5% of interns work in political parties;
- 5% of interns own private institutions.