Mission
A mission is a conscious purpose of a person, organization or community, which defines why it exists, what role it performs and what it strives for. The mission outlines the main meaning of the activity, its values and the direction of movement, connecting the present with the desired future.
The mission of the NGO “FACE TO FACE“ is to promote the strengthening of democracy, supporting Ukraine’s defense capability, countering corruption, community development, inclusive society and civic education, providing psychological and legal support to citizens, preserving cultural heritage, protecting the environment, creating conditions for the realization of human potential and civic activity, forming a strong, fair and responsible society.
Democracy is a social system in which the people are the source of power, participate in determining the future of their country, and state life is based on law, freedom, equality and respect for human rights and dignity.
“Democracy is the government of the people, by the people and for the people.”
(Abraham Lincoln)
Democracy is a beautiful, loud word, almost festive! It is liked to be pronounced with emphasis on the stands, convulsively printed in programs, and falsely promised before the elections.
But true democracy does not begin where a politician says: “I represent the people.” It begins where the people ask: “And who gave you permission to speak in my name?”
Ukrainians paid too much for the right to persistently ask this question.
Our Constitution leaves no room for political poetry here:
“The bearer of sovereignty and the only source of power in Ukraine is the people.”
(Constitution of Ukraine, Article 5, Part 2)
The state is not a private company of those who have received the keys to its offices for a certain period of time.
Power is not the right to own people. It is a duty to serve them.
Democracy is not once every five years.
Among some politicians, there is a very convenient illusion: you have voted and democracy has been fulfilled.
No. It shouldn’t be like that.
Authentic democracy is formed between elections: in the opportunity to ask uncomfortable questions, demand explanations, receive public information, unite with others, defend your rights, criticize the government freely and confidently.
In a democracy, a citizen does not disappear after the ballot box.
On the contrary, everything is just beginning after the ballot box.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights directly links government to the will of the people and recognizes the right of individuals to participate in the governance of their country directly or through freely elected representatives.
(Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 21, Part 3)
Democracy is inconvenient to dictatorship, because it needs silence.
She is also very much disliked by the firmly established bureaucracy.
A true democracy must withstand an uncomfortable opinion, sharp journalism, protest, satire, a public activist who comes with a folder of documents and asks ten questions that are not at all comilfo to answer.
If the government does one thing, thinks about another, and someone else says the opposite – this is no longer democracy. It is a well organized theater.
“Government is not eloquence, the perfection of laws, or a strong army. This is the honesty and wisdom of the people who manage it.”
(George Washington)
And there is a fundamental thing here: democracy does not mean that everyone should think alike. It means that no one gets the right to force everyone to think as is convenient for the authorities.
Freedom is not needed for to agree.
Freedom is necessary in order to have the right to disagree.
Ukraine has repeatedly proven that its society is capable of saying “No” to the authorities.
Maidans have become more than just political events. They showed a special feature of Ukrainian society: when a person feels that his dignity is being turned into a bargaining chip, it is able to leave the zone of vain imaginary comfort in the space of joint responsibility.
Today, Ukraine is demonstrating unprecedented heroism to the whole world, defending not only its own territorial integrity, but also the right to a free future.
This daily feat of millions conclusively proves that the Ukrainian people have forever made their civilizational choice. Such people will never obey anyone again, because freedom has become their second nature, and democracy is an inseparable part of the national DNA, for which it is worth paying the most.
Democracy is not the silence of a cemetery or the empty speeches of hypocrites in expensive suits who have settled down at the state troughs. Democracy is a fight, it is a rupture of the aorta, it is a red-hot iron on the tip of the tongue, it is a challenge to every brat who has decided that he is the master of life here, and you are, yes, a side dish to taste.
Ukraine today burns the mark of submission on the foreheads of all the imperial inhumans who thought that we could be broken with tanks, lies or dirty intrigues! This is not just heroism – it is a cosmic, animal, sacred frenzy of freedom, before which this whole hypocritical world trembles and writhes!
We ourselves create our own reality, we burn the script of our own future on the edges of history! No compromises, no halftones, no indulgences!
Only us, only our will and this wild, unstoppable carnival of victory, which no one will ever be able to stop!
Anti-corruption is a complex of legal, economic, educational and public measures aimed at preventing corruption, its detection and termination, bringing the guilty to justice and establishing transparency and integrity in society.
“Corruption is a crime against development, democracy and justice.”
(Kofi Annan)
Corruption is a word which we hear so often that it risks turning into ordinary noise. It is so often pronounced by various officials, politicians, journalists, and activists that we will soon dream of it in the form of a black hole, for example. They resent this word in the morning, discuss it in the evening, and then get used to living next to it again.
But corruption is not an abstract evil.
This is a very specific hand that arbitrarily reaches into your pocket.
This is a hospital that doesn’t have what it should have.
This is a road that is repaired every year in such a way that it crumbles again after the first rain.
This is a tender in which the winner is known even before the announcement of the competition.
This is a permission that suddenly becomes faster after “thank you”.
This is budget money that was supposed to work for people, but for some reason it starts working for someone’s private interests.
Corruption does not start with millions in suitcases, but, rather, where they should never be.
It begins where they treacherously steal your time to comply with ridiculous requirements, cosmic fines for not complying with them, so that you never have to look back and think about something else. Your attention is specially and methodically blinded to any what unnecessary information.
It begins where the corrupt establishment decides: for me, the law does not exist at all.
Corruption is not just a shameful habit or a bureaucratic disease, it is a disgusting, stinking sore on the body of our country, which is torn open daily by the greedy leeches of society for their own profit.
By the way, it is these impudent bastards, who grew fatted buttocks into expensive chairs, uncompromisingly destroy the economy of our country.
When rear marauders steal millions from the budget, lining their own pockets, they directly hit the backs of those who hold the front, cynically and criminally weakening the defense capabilities of our Nenka in the bloodiest era of its history!
Anti-corruption is a public duty of every caring person, and an integral part of the mission of the NGO FACE TO FACE“. This is an integral part of the conditions for the existence and further development of democracy.
And in this place there should be no compromises with embezzlement. They must be burned forever with a red-hot iron, everyone,
who dares to trade the security and future of Ukraine!
Human rights protection is an activity aimed at protecting and restoring violated human rights and freedoms, ensuring compliance with laws and fair treatment of everyone.
Human rights are the boundary that the state has no right to cross under any circumstances.
There are things that are not agreed upon. Not traded. Do not vote by majority. Human dignity is one of them.
Law does not begin in an official’s office or on the page of the law. It begins where a person remains a person – even when the system, indifference, money, position or fear are against them.
Ukraine pays too high a price for freedom to allow itself to live according to the old rules. We protect the state not because to make a person feel powerless before her. We protect the state precisely so that the state is on the side of people.
Human rights protection is not another word for the report. This is the ability to act when the weaker is forced to remain silent. It is to stand next to the one whom no one wants to listen to anymore. It is to help a person find a legal way where he thinks that all doors are closed.
Because injustice rarely comes with a siren. More often, it has an ordinary face: an official “we can’t”, someone else’s “it’s none of your business”, an indifferent signature, a delayed statement, a phone call that no one answered.
And this is where our border passes.
We do not promise to defeat every injustice. But we will not allow it to become the norm.
We stand for a society in which the law is the same for everyone – regardless of wealth, position, age, origin or social status. For Ukraine, where human dignity does not require permission, and the right does not depend on acquaintances.
We don’t need the silence called stability. We need justice that can be felt with our own skin.
Because the law that does not protect a person turns into paper. And freedom, for which no one is ready to fight, very quickly becomes a memory.
So we will talk. We will act. We will support those who find it difficult to protect themselves.
Not because we are stronger than everyone else.
And because no one should be left alone with injustice.
And if one day the system tries to convince a person that he is small, powerless and does not solve anything, we want to be there to remind him:
You have the right.
You have a voice.
You have dignity.
And you are not alone.
Supporting the Armed Forces is a joint responsibility, on which depends not only the outcome of the war, but also what Ukraine will be like after it. For a citizen, it can be a donation, volunteer assistance, transfer of necessary equipment or support of the military; for business – resources, technologies and workplaces; for states — weapons, financing, training and political support. Everyone is doing what they can, but indifference in this war also has a price. Ukrainian military personnel risk their lives every day to protect the country, and it is our duty to provide them with everything they need to do their job and return home.
Ukraine does not rely on beautiful speeches. She clings to people who stand where the most terrible. On those who cover others. For those who are in the trenches, behind the wheel of an evacuation vehicle, in the medical station, at the operator’s console, in the cold, in the rain, without sleep — it does its job.
Our task is not to let them feel that they are fighting alone.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine is not an abstract structure from an official document. These are someone’s sons and daughters. Someone’s parents. friends Beloved People who just yesterday lived an ordinary life, and today hold the line behind which stand our homes, our children, our cities and the very right of Ukraine to be Ukraine.
That is why defense support for us is not a gesture of goodwill or a seasonal action. This is the moral duty of those who today sleep in their own beds, go to work, open a store, raise children and continue to live.
War does not cancel our responsibility. On the contrary, it exposes her.
We bring together people, resources, volunteer initiatives and partners to help defenders where help is truly needed. We seek to hear not loud statements, but specific needs. Not to collect applause, but to close requests. Not to create the appearance of work, but to give results.
Because there are no trifles in war.
What seems like a simple thing for the rear, for the military can be the difference between “made it” and “didn’t make it”, between “returned” and “didn’t return”.
We do not romanticize war. We do not embellish it with pathos. We know its price. And that is why we consider it a matter of honor to support those who defend the country.
Ukraine will not win when when the victory will be talked about the loudest. It will win when everyone in their place does what depends on them.
They hold the front.
It is our duty to keep them.
Not tomorrow. Not “after the war”. Today. Here and now!
Development is a constant movement forward, improvement and acquisition of new opportunities that change people, society, technology and the surrounding world.
A country that stops developing begins to degrade. And no amount of flags, speeches or loud promises will hide it.
For a long time, Ukrainians were used to surviving, surviving the crisis, waiting for better times, live to see tomorrow. But Ukraine can no longer live in the “suffer a little more” mode. We need more than just endurance. We need a breakthrough.
Development is not just about new roads, buildings or technology. This is first of all a person who got a chance.
This is a community that has learned to act independently.
These are young people who do not dream of leaving forever,
and sees the future here. This is every entrepreneur who still continues to hold the economic sky of Ukraine with bloody calluses, to whom no sticks are put in the wheels.
This is a teacher whose work has weight.
This is a city that does not wait for mercy, but rather creates opportunities.
We want a Ukraine where talent is not stifled by indifference, initiative by bureaucracy, and the dream – with the words “we don’t do it that way”.
Our mission is to help people and communities find growth points, launch initiatives, acquire new knowledge, pool resources and turn ideas into results. Don’t feed society with promises, but give it tools.
Because development begins with a simple question: “What if we could do better?”
Better to organize. It is better to teach. Better to build. It is better to negotiate. It’s better to use what we already have — and not be afraid to create what doesn’t exist yet.
We don’t want to leave behind a beautiful facade with empty rooms. We need a space in which life is bubbling: projects are born, people meet, ideas are debated, teams appear, opportunities open up.
Because the future does not come. They do it.
And if war taught us to appreciate every day, then peace should teach us not to waste a single chance.
We want to see Ukraine not as a country that simply endured, but as a country that rose after everything it went through and became stronger, smarter, freer and braver.
Do not ask the future for permission, but build your own reality with your own hands.
That is why development is not an additional option for us.
This is our next front.
Ecology is the science of relationships between living organisms and the environment, as well as human impact on nature and the consequences of this impact.
The earth is not silent, it feels everything, reacts to everything. We just pretended not to notice it for a long time.
She speaks of droughts and floods, fires and hurricanes, depleted soils, poisoned water, air that is already scary to breathe. We call it “natural disasters”, as if nature itself decided to declare war on us. But maybe it’s not revenge. This is an account. For our safety. For greed. For the habit of taking everything and giving nothing back.
The planet does not belong to us.
We only temporarily hold it in our hands – along with the responsibility for those who will come after us.
You can talk as much as you want about progress, build skyscrapers, launch satellites and brag about technology. But what is the point of civilization if a child cannot safely breathe air? What is the price of economic growth if it leaves behind a poisoned earth? What kind of future are we building if we destroy the environment at the same time, in which is this future to live?
Environmental responsibility for us is not a fad, not a decorative item in the mission statement, and not a photo with a planted tree for social media. This is a matter of basic conscience and common sense.
We want to see Ukraine, where the river is not a channel for waste, the forest is not a warehouse for wood, the land is not a bottomless quarry,
and the air is not what we poison each other with every day.
We strive to support environmental initiatives, spread knowledge about responsible attitude to the environment, promote the preservation of natural resources and form a culture in which there is no shame in being responsible.
Because everything does not start with a big state program.
It starts with the fact that a person does not throw garbage where his child will walk tomorrow. Do not destroy the tree that will survive it. Does not poison the water from which others will drink.
And perhaps this is where the real test of civility takes place.
Not in how much we can take from the world.
And in that
how much life will remain in it after us.
We have no right to hand over to the next generation a planet that has survived in spite of us.
It is our duty to leave them the Earth they want to live on.
Culture is a set of material and spiritual values, knowledge, traditions, norms, customs and creative assets created by mankind and passed on from generation to generation. It shapes the worldview, way of life and value system of society.
A nation that forgets its culture one day she wakes up in a foreign land – even if she has never formally left anywhere.
Culture is not the silence of a museum, dust on old books, or a solemn concert once a year. Culture is the nerve of the people. His memory. His voice. His way of saying to the world, “We are.”
Therefore, they fight for culture no less than for territory. Because the land can be reclaimed. But the people who have lost their memory of themselves have to be put together from the ruins.
Ukraine knows the price of cultural destruction. Forbidden words. Destroyed books. Shot artists. Stolen museum valuables. Burned archives. Rewritten history. The Empire understood perfectly what we sometimes forget: whoever controls the memory tries to control the future.
Taras Shevchenko wrote: “Truth, strength, and will are one’s own in one’s house.”
And this is not a poetic decoration. This is a political, cultural and even civilizational principle.
Your house is not four walls.
It is its own language. My memory. Your heroes. His art. The right to call a spade a spade.
We don’t want a culture that only exists in textbooks. We need a living culture — one that argues, provokes, asks pressing questions, breaks stereotypes and does not allow society to sleep.
Because culture without freedom turns into decoration.
And freedom without culture is an empty space that someone will very quickly fill with someone else’s meanings.
We support Ukrainian authors, artists, researchers, cultural initiatives and projects that preserve our heritage and at the same time give birth to new ones. It is important for us not only to preserve what our ancestors left, but also to have the courage to create what we will leave behind.
Because Shevchenko, Franko, Lesya Ukrainka, Kulish, Stus, Khvylovy are not pages of the past. These are people who at one time were also contemporaries. They did not wait for permission to become part of history.
History does not ask if we are ready for it. She just comes.
Today she is standing at our door again.
And now the question is not only what we will save.
The question is what we will create.
What will the Ukrainian book be like after this war? What kind of movie will we make about the experience? What music will the world hear? What names will be added to our cultural memory? What meanings will we pass on to children who will one day ask us: “What did you do when Ukraine elected itself?”
We want to have an answer to this question.
Not an excuse.
Respond.
Culture is what remains when the guns stop, governments change, and generations pass.
That is why we will not allow Ukrainian culture to become a museum of its own greatness.
We want her to breathe. spoke I fought She gave birth to a new one.
Because people live until
as long as there is something to remember, something to say and something to create for.
Ukraine has something to remember.
Ukraine has something to say.
And Ukraine has something to create.
