NGO Docudays
We promote the adherence to and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms, establish the understanding of human dignity as the highest value, raise the level of civic activity in Ukraine, facilitate the development of documentary filmmaking
History of NGO Docudays
In 2007−18, the organizers of the International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival Docudays UA were the Helsinki Human Rights Union, NGO South, NGO Charity and Health Fund, and NGO Center for Contemporary Information Technology and Visual Arts. In 2018, at the strategic planning session on the festival’s development, the leaders of these organizations and the Festival team made a decision to rebrand the human rights NGO South (founded in 1998), and on 6 February 2019, the organization was renamed NGO Docudays.
The co-founders of the Docudays UA Festival agreed that NGO Docudays:
  • 1
    is the main organizer of the International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival Docudays UA, which takes place every year in Kyiv during the last week of March;
  • 2
    organizes the Travelling Human Rights Documentary Film Festival Docudays UA and holds it in cooperation with the Network of Regional Partners;

  • 3
    expands and improves the Network of Docudays UA Media Education Film Clubs (DOCU/CLUBs Network);

  • 4
    organizes and implements the human rights programme RIGHTS NOW! within the Docudays UA Festival, the Travelling Festival and the DOCU/CLUBs Network;

  • 5
    implements the online documentary platform DOCU/SPACE;
  • 6
    implements DOCU/HIT, the project for expanding the full-fledged theater run of documentaries in Ukraine;
  • 7
    implements children and teenagers' programmes DOC/SADOC;
  • 8
    implements the platform for developing the Ukrainian film industry DOCU/PRO and the documentary workshop DOCU/CLASS;
  • 9
    implements other projects to achieve the Festival's purposes;
  • 10
    searches for resources to organize and hold the Festivals and the accompanying projects.
Vision
We create a society of free people
Mission
We create opportunities for everyone in Ukraine to watch talented and relevant documentaries about human rights. We shape an active civic position and respect for human dignity. We support the Ukrainian film industry.
Purpose
Our purpose is to uphold and defend human rights and fundamental liberties, establish the understanding of human dignity as the highest value, raise the level of civic activity in Ukraine, and develop documentary filmmaking.
VALUES
Love for cinema
By demonstrating relevant, talented, high-quality documentaries, we give the audience an opportunity to comprehend the modern world and become a participant of change.

Human rights
By popularising events from the human rights programme and conducting human rights campaigns, we help shape agents of change; and by increasing social respect for human rights, we achieve our vision.

Team
We are daring! The things we do together are impossible to do alone. We invest a lot of creativity, love, and professionalism in everything we undertake. We build relationships based on equality, mutual support, and respect.

Professionalism
We work to achieve results and we are attentive to detail. We master our emotions when it comes to complex challenges. We rely on decades of organising experience and on our team of professionals, as well as on a broad circle of experts and consultants.

Creativity
Creativity as an important component of constant development and improvement of our organisation and our team; creative solutions and innovative approaches for the purpose of achieving better quality and work satisfaction.
Our Goals
Promoting the international standards of human rights, fundamental freedoms, human rights education;

Organizing the International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival Docudays UA, whose programme includes the best documentaries from all over the world;

Organizing the Travelling Festival Docudays UA in Ukrainian regions, with the help of regional partner organizations, and screening of selected documentaries from Ukraine, European countries, Asia, America, and Australia during the festival;

Organizing the industry platform and documentary co-production workshops;

Collecti
ng, analysing and distributing information about the programmes, trends and problems of social development in Ukraine;

Organizing and conducting
masterclasses by leading documentary professionals;

Organizing and conducting roundatables, press conferences, seminar trainings, film clubs, including announcements about them;
Doing analytical research, including in political and social sciences, about the issues related to the programmes, trends, problems and prospects of social and socio-political development in Ukraine, both in the form of independent projects and as part of other programmes;

Studying and analyzing the actual state and trends of the development of social processes in Ukraine, and developing recommendations to government bodies, political parties and NGOs about social consolidation, democratization of various spheres of life on the basis of this research;

Facilitating
the organization and implementation of non-profit educational activities (festivals, conferences, lectures, seminars, consultations, other events) for citizens of Ukraine, members of the Organization, representatives and members of other associations of Ukrainian citizens, foreign citizens, stateless people, aimed at analyzing and explaining the existing problems in the sphere of socio-political development, searching for ways to solve them, improving the state of protection of citizen rights and freedoms, the level of public awareness of programmes, trends, problems and prospects of socio-political development, and the wider circle of related questions of both theoretical and practical nature;

Involving Ukrainian citizens, foreigners, stateless individuals in the Organization's programmes aimed at protection and realization of the rights and freedoms of Ukrainian citizens;

Establishing
permanent connections, exchanging experience, and various forms of collaboration with other national Ukrainian and local associations of citizens of Ukraine and other countries, including international and foreign non-government organizations;

Comprehensively facilitating the protection of human rights, constitutional, particularly cultural, political, social, scientific rights and interests of individuals, associations of Ukrainian citizens;

Organiz
ing and publishing of non-profit mass media;

Legal pro
tection for victims of human rights violations;

Supporting
the process of establishment and development of the Ukrainian human rights movement;

Collecting information about the facts of violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms and the rights situation in Ukraine through the lens of compliance with the letter and spirit of international commitments in the sphere of human rights and fundamental freedoms;

Facilitating the creation of documentary, fiction, animated films, clips, videos;

Facilitating
the communication of information about the situation with human rights and fundamental freedoms in Ukraine to its members, Ukrainian government and non-government organizations, international bodies and organizations, and the wider public;

Analyzing
election legislation and the practice of holding elections;

Facilit
ating the proper conduction of elections and referendums held in accordance with election legislation;

Searching for and applying the forms of effective public participation in the legislative process on the issues related to the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms, providing maximum support for legislative and executive bodies, local self-government bodies in creating the guarantees for upholding human rights and fundamental freedoms;

Supporting civic initiatives aimed at developing the self-organization of the population;

Representing
and protecting the rights and freedoms of citizens.

Contacts
Mailing address:
01001, Kyiv, Ukraine
11 Mala Zhytomyrska Str., apt. 10

Executive Director Svitlana Smal
[email protected]
Finance Director Andrii Nakai
[email protected]