East Central Europe/Eurasia Regional

Democratic Initiatives Foundation
$49,270
To conduct a nationwide campaign to inform and engage the Ukrainian public about the democratic values involved in Euro-Atlantic integration. Together with Central European experts, the Foundation will hold a series of public hearings and roundtables in Kyiv, Donetsk, Kharkiv, and Odessa, four cities that have a plurality of residents who tend to oppose western-oriented reform.

East European Democratic Center
$59,577*
To develop and strengthen youth NGOs in central and southern Russia. Approximately 100 youth leaders from Voronezh and Kazan will participate in a basic training program on NGO management and development. Fifty of the most active will take part in an advanced training program on the same topic, and the ten most promising youth leaders will travel to Poland for a ten-day study visit.

East European Democratic Center
$79,943*
To foster the development of independent youth organizations at the district and local levels in Ukraine. The Warsaw-based Center will work with local youth activists and networks in central and eastern Ukraine with a focus on the 2006 parliamentary elections. Youth NGOs will organize nonpartisan voter education and mobilization programs targeting young and first-time voters.

East European Democratic Center
$88,857
To continue assisting the local and regional independent press in Ukraine. Working with the Association of Independent Regional Press Publishers in Ukraine, the Warsaw-based EEDC will conduct three training events in Ukraine, organize 14 internships at similar newspapers in Poland, and provide small grants to up to fifteen papers in Ukraine's southern and eastern regions.

East European Democratic Center (EEDC)
$74,110
To foster the development of the local press in Central Asia. The Poland-based EEDC will organize ten internships and three workshops to train 60 journalists, editors-in-chief, and advertising managers from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan in newspaper management, advertising, and distribution. It will award three to five small grants, totaling Amount 10,000, to local newspapers to purchase needed equipment or improve circulation, advertising, or design.

Foundation for Education for Democracy
$150,000
To continue and expand the Foundation's program of civic education and NGO training workshops in Eurasia. The Warsaw-based Foundation will conduct at least 34 workshops for 792 local activists and over 100 trainers, to be conducted in Ukraine, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Mongolia. Workshops will provide basic and advanced training in civic education, youth leadership, NGO development, and training-of-trainer techniques.

Foundation for Education for Democracy
$90,000*
To continue and expand the Foundation's civic education program at the grassroots level in Russia. The Warsaw-based Foundation will oversee a program of 32 training workshops in Russia and 16 exchanges and internships in Russia, Ukraine, and Poland for approximately 643 activists from Rostov-on-Don, Kaliningrad and Samara.

Institute for Eastern Studies Foundation
$37,682*
To organize the second annual EU-Russia Forum. The Forum, to be held in Vilnius, Lithuania, will encourage debate on major issues impacting the EU and Russia, and promote closer ties between leading decision makers and opinion makers in Europe, particularly those from "New Europe," and Russia. The event will initiate discussions on key democracy-related topics and will promote exchange of reform experiences between participants.

Institute for Eastern Studies Foundation
$31,400*
To support the participation of 40 Russian third sector and media representatives in the 16th annual Krynica Economic Forum, a major congress of European politicians, economists, businesspersons, and NGO activists from more than two dozen countries that meets every September in southern Poland. The Russian journalists will also meet with approximately 1,500 participants from 50 countries.

Institute of Public Affairs
$26,315*
To continue a cross-border fellowship program for six young Russian think tank analysts. The Institute will collaborate with the St. Petersburg Center for Humanities and Political Studies "Strategia" (Strategy) in selection and training of candidates. Analysts will undertake a study visit to Poland, where they will receive training in policy research and writing skills, meet with experts, and complete a policy project involving academic and field research.

International Republican Institute
$430,000
To establish a Baltic-Eurasia Inter-Parliamentary Training Institute to pair parliamentarians from established, successful democracies with parliamentarians from struggling, developing states in the region. At the Lithuania-based Institute, IRI and Central European trainers will train parliamentarians from Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia and another Eurasian country.

Lion Society
$68,992
To initiate a democracy-building program between Ukraine and Russia. The Lviv-based Society will convene four meetings of potential partner organizations from Ukraine and Russia and launch an information program on cross-border activities, including creating a website and an informative brochure on cross-border cooperation. The Society will award small grants to 80 Russian and Ukrainian activists for travel to civil society events across the two countries' borders.

Medium Orient Information Agency
$28,752
To continue and expand a series of public opinion polls in seven republics and two regions of the North Caucasus. The Prague-based Agency will conduct 12 surveys, one per month, on key social, political, and economic issues; analyze the data; and disseminate the results on its Caucasus Times website and through other sources of information on the North Caucasus.

National Democratic Institute for International Affairs
$90,000
To help organize a two-day parliamentary component to the next Community of Democratic Choice conference. MPs, including speakers, from 32 countries will participate as well as international organizations such as the OSCE and NATO. NDI will recommend discussing the following topics during the conference strategies for legislative-executive relations, communication strategies for rolling out reforms, public outreach, and formation of a parliamentary association. NDI will invite international experts from Europe and the U.S.

National Democratic Institute for International Affairs
$250,457
To continue party building programs in conjunction with the European Institute for Democracy (EID). EID will assist civic groups, and political leaders by organizing five programs to bring leaders from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, and Tajikistan to Poland to receive training. The trainings will strengthen grassroots organizing skills, and strengthen organization-building skills. These programs will result in concrete plans for advocacy or election campaigns, and organization building in the target countries.

People in Need Foundation
$75,000
To assist democrats in Moldova and Ukraine. The PINF will organize 23 cross-border visits. Nineteen of the visits will bring politicians, local government officials, NGO leaders, and other activists from these countries to the Czech Republic for study, networking and training. Czech politicians, NGO activists, and journalists will also travel to Ukraine and Moldova to assist democratic activists there.

Poland-American-Ukraine Cooperation Initiative (PAUCI)
$42,700
To promote transparency and freedom of the media in Ukraine. PAUCI will award at least four small grants averaging Amount 7,000 to Polish and Ukrainian NGOs for anti-corruption and freedom of the press programs targeting youth, media practitioners, local government officials and local activists based primarily in eastern and southern Ukraine.

Polish-Czech-Slovak Solidarity Foundation
$24,550
To hold a conference commemorating and examining prodemocracy initiatives conducted between Poland and other Soviet bloc states since 1991. The two-day event, to be held in the southwestern Polish city of Wroclaw, will examine the history, experiences, best practices, impact, and future of cross-border democracy-building from Poland. Approximately 50 activists from East Central Europe and Eurasia will take part.

Polish-Czech-Slovak Solidarity Foundation
$46,500
To continue a media training program for independent journalists and editors in Eurasia. The Warsaw-based Foundation will invite 30 media practitioners from Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, and the Caucasus to Poland for media-related internships. The journalists and editors will spend two weeks in Poland participating in training on how to improve the work of independent newspapers, publishing houses, and radio and television stations. Media-related seminars and meetings will introduce participants to the experiences of Polish organizations, activists, and reforms.

Polish-Czech-Slovak Solidarity Foundation
$73,395
To continue a desktop publishing training and equipment support program for representatives of prodemocracy NGOs and independent newspapers in Eurasia. The Warsaw-based Foundation will train at least 38 activists in desktop publishing skills and equip at least 19 organizations from Belarus, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine with the software necessary to start their own desktop publishing programs.

Pro Democracy Association
$29,122
To conduct three election-related planning meetings for the Secretariat of the European Network of Election Monitoring Organization (ENEMO). The Association, an independent, nonpartisan NGO based in Romania which heads the Secretariat, will also improve ENEMO's international outreach by printing and distributing a five-year history and report on the network's activities, hiring an international coordinator, and revamping its website.

Rebirth of Crimea Foundation
$40,850
To bring together students, teachers, and parents from Crimea for a school newspaper program. Using trainers from Poland, the Foundation will organize journalism training seminars for 400 students from 30 schools using Tatar, Ukrainian, and Russian languages, and help them develop their own school newspapers. It will organize computer trainings, arrange visits by professional journalists, initiate a journalism training-of-trainers program, and publish the best newspaper articles from the project.

TOGETHER Foundation
$40,115*
To promote civic activism among secondary school students in Chechnya. Slovenian experts will train 25 Chechen teachers and activists to serve as mentors, who will in turn teach 375 students about voluntarism. Participants will volunteer in Chechen schools, hospitals, NGOs, and local communities. Three thousand copies of a leaflet on the program and 100 copies of a manual, Voluntary Work in Schools, will be distributed.

Transitions Online
$62,775
To continue a training program that will expand and improve independent Internet reporting in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. TOL will continue assisting last year's participants, organize a three-day training seminar for Uzbek and Krygyz journalists in Bishkek, begin a distance learning project for Central Asian journalists, and bring nine Central Asian media activists to the Czech Republic for training internships.

Transitions Online (TOL)
$107,785*
To expand a cross-border program designed to promote independent journalism and foster independent Internet sources of information in Russia. TOL will bring 30 Russian journalists to Prague for three-week training internships on how to organize and operate an online news service. It will also maintain its distance-learning program, established last year, which will also train at least 32 journalism students and early career journalists.