So, let’s get started.
It all started back in 2021, when Russia had not yet launched a full-scale war against our country. At that time, several students and teachers at Taurida University took the initiative and decided to try to make the voice of Ukrainian students heard in our media space. This is how the NGO ‘Student Journalism Platform’ was founded.
The purpose of this organisation is to draw public attention to the issues and problems that affect young people today, to raise the most important and painful topics. The NGO has its own website, yes, the one you are looking at right now, Truthful Reporting, which also works as an online media outlet. We are also developing social media, mainly Instagram, where we publish small posts with key information about a particular story and a few photos. As part of my work for this online media outlet, I have been able to produce a lot of material on a variety of topics, most recently writing about the war in Ukraine and interviewing Ukrainians about their experiences since 24 February 2022.
With the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, together with the NGO team, we created several sections on the war. In general, the website has become a platform for self-expression for students from different universities, from different parts of Ukraine: our team includes young students from Ostroh Academy, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Vernadsky Taurida National University, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Yuriy Fedkovych National University of Chernivtsi and other universities.
Our main goal is to promote the development of a democratic society based on the rule of law in Ukraine. The organisation is driven by active, bright young people who are willing to do interesting, meaningful journalism and spread truthful information to the reading public (hence the name ‘Truthful Reporting’).
Our Mission:
We strive to promote the development of a democratic civil society in Ukraine through the activities of active students. We believe that young people are our future, who can and do make meaningful and qualitative changes in various spheres of life.
Our vision:
As part of our projects on the war in Ukraine, Truthful Reporting journalists collect and publish in Ukrainian and English the life stories of young Ukrainians from different backgrounds, educations, beliefs and lifestyles. These are volunteers, activists, members of NGOs, founders of voluntary foundations who are doing their best to help our country win this fight against the occupier and recover as soon as possible.
We focus on those young people who, despite great challenges and difficulties, continue to make their contribution to Ukraine’s victory in this war. We report and tell the stories of volunteers who are delivering humanitarian aid to our refugees and organising various events to raise more funds for the urgent needs of ordinary Ukrainians affected by the fighting. We also tell the stories of young journalists who travel to devastated towns and villages and talk to local people, drawing the attention of the authorities and the international community to the pressing problems in the country. We write about young people who have joined civil society organisations and are actively working to make this world a better place, to improve the situation in their town or village.
We are collecting stories from our citizens who were forced to live under Russian occupation, in very difficult, often inhumane conditions, and asking them about their experiences and how they see the future for themselves. We also want to know what steps our young boys and girls are taking today to make that future a reality.
This piece would not be complete without mentioning what we have achieved in the more than 3 years since we started.
Some of our achievements in recent years:
1. We became an official online media. The NGO ‘Student Journalism Platform’ has been registered as an entity in the field of online media, namely pages in social networks and the website ‘Truthful Reporting’.
2. We have received grants from Ukrainian and foreign organisations for the development of media projects. Our donors include the Public Interest Journalism Lab, the Fritt Ord Foundation, the Institute of Mass Information and others.
3. Our NGO was able to establish cooperation and start working on projects with various organisations and foundations, including Kyiv Defenders (a volunteer organisation that provides assistance to the Ukrainian military), the United volunteer project (helping everyone to switch to Ukrainian), the youth organisation AIESEC, and the national programme Neopalymi, which deals with the rehabilitation of Ukrainians affected by the war.
4. We were included in the map of recommended media prepared by the NGOs “Institute of Mass Information” and “Detector Media” with the support of the international organisation Internews.
5. Over the course of more than 3 years, the NGO and online publication has been able to assemble a great team of more than 50 people – writers, editors, IT specialists, photographers – who are developing Truthful Reporting media and working to make the voice of our youth even stronger.
6. Thanks to the support of grants, we have been able to carry out a number of journalistic projects, including War Diary (collecting stories about the lives and experiences of Ukrainians during the full-scale war, especially the first weeks and months after the start of the large-scale invasion), Ukrainian Youth Changing the World (stories of proactive Ukrainian youth during the full-scale war), Stories of Ukrainian Resistance (focusing on how Ukrainians have been able to resist the Russian invasion and imperialist worldview through their actions, how they have fought and continue to fight for our freedom and identity on the home front). Many other projects were carried out without grants and were brought to life by students who were really passionate about their subject and had a great desire and interest in writing about it: these include the projects Life of Ukrainians in Canada and Germany after Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine, What Colour Is Your Heart and others.
7. We have organised and run international courses with students from different universities in the country, with lecturers from all over the world (UK, USA, Norway, etc.). In particular, we worked on the certificate course ‘Truthful Reporting: Even When It Hurts‘, which gave journalism students from Ukrainian universities a unique opportunity to communicate with an international team of media professionals.
The course speakers were:
And now let’s look to the future. The NGO’s plans for the next few years include the following:
