ReachOut was a completed project implemented with the support of the Federal Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany. The project partners were Comparative Research Network (CRN) (Germany) and the Ukrainian Network of Adult Education and Development of Innovation (UNAEDI). Cooperation was coordinated by a joint project management team. Activities took place in Germany and Ukraine.

Duration

May–December 2020

Aim

The project helped demystify the conflict by identifying common solutions. On the one hand, it made journalists more aware of the various dimensions of the conflict; on the other, it provided basic training in integration and peacebuilding to representatives of non-governmental organisations and civic activists.

Participants acted as multipliers and agents of change: they articulated problems of integration and peacebuilding in the mass media and offered a wide range of creative events for affected individuals and communities from different regions of Ukraine, with the aim of establishing a peaceful dialogue.

Peacebuilding platform

The project coordinated and further developed a permanent platform for peacebuilding and development that had been launched in 2019 as part of an earlier project. This platform brought together German and Ukrainian representatives from the mass media and civil society. It served as a tool for combating negative propaganda in and about Ukraine and for promoting peace dialogues.

Division of tasks

In order to create a balanced partnership and to organise activities with the greatest possible impact, the partners defined joint tasks and country-specific tasks. Some tasks were assigned to CRN alone as coordinator.

CRN’s sole tasks were:

• project monitoring;
• budget planning and management;
• communication with the Federal Foreign Office;
• reporting to the funding body.

Common tasks were:

• planning, implementation and control of public relations work;
• project documentation;
• quality assurance and evaluation of the project;
• joint implementation of the journalist competition;
• joint implementation of the Forum for Peacemakers in Kyiv;
• development of training plans and methods, and preparation of trainers for local activities in Ukraine;
• organisation, implementation and documentation of the synergy workshop, conducted with trainers from both organisations.

Country-specific tasks in Germany were:

• organisation, implementation and documentation of the study visit of journalists in Berlin;
• training in Berlin.

Country-specific tasks in Ukraine (UNAEDI) were:

• organisation, implementation and documentation of the training of journalists;
• organisation, implementation and documentation of the creative workshop.