What #ShiftThePower means to us

From December 5 to 7, representatives of our team participated in the #ShiftThePower summit in Bogotá, Colombia. During the summit, reflecting on the experiences and information shared, we wrote a letter to the #ShiftThePower community and the international audience about what #ShiftThePower means to us.

We are the National Network for the Development of Local Philanthropy, working to change the influence of non-governmental organizations on society in Ukraine by collaborating with international donors to advocate for the process of localization. We aim to ensure that global resources serve local needs and align with local realities and priorities.

For Ukraine, #ShiftThePower means survival. We are currently dependent on international aid—humanitarian, economic, and military. #ShiftThePower, for us, is a manifestation of solidarity, taking into account our context and respect for our fight for independence and democratic values. Of course, it is also about local resources. Over the past two years, Ukrainians have raised $2.3 billion in cash solely to support our military. However, we live in a media world where any news can be fabricated with money. Russia spends a great deal of money on some public figures, who have influence and authority, but are not from local communities, to sway larger donors. Therefore, shifting the power means empowering and investing in the voices of the local people.

During one of the sessions, we wrote a slogan about the strategy for safe communities. The slogan of our group was connected to the theme of inclusive listening. When peacebuilding takes place, communities must be heard. Peace should not be violent. The community should own its peace.

In another session, we discussed decolonization. Each of us has our own context. We want to share Ukraine’s context. Since 2014, about 7% of our country’s territory has been occupied by Russia. In 2014, Russia and Ukraine signed the Minsk agreements to halt the active phase of the war. In 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Currently, 18% of our territory is occupied. Around 20 cities and countless villages have been completely destroyed. Occupiers kill civilians just because they are Ukrainians. The occupiers rape women and abduct children. They prevent humanitarian aid from reaching people in occupied territories. NGOs have no access to these areas and cannot support activists who manage to help. The occupiers force the indigenous population, especially Crimean Tatars, to leave their homes.

You may think that Russia’s colonization of Ukraine is a matter of just the past few years. In reality, this process has been ongoing for centuries, ever since Russia absorbed most of Ukraine in the late 17th century. Since 1922, when Russia re-conquered briefly independent Ukraine and included it into the USSR, Russia has been killing our intellectuals, destroying our culture and religion, and murdering people, as it did during the Holodomor in 1932-33. Then, in 1991, we formally gained independence. But was it truly independent? Partially. Our national assets were stolen or destroyed; we were forced to give up nuclear weapons under the illusionary protection of the Budapest Memorandum. We remained economically dependent on Russia. But as former Soviet countries began to develop, Russia drifted far from what the Soviet Union was in its final decades. The Russians decided to inherit Soviet-style dictatorship and restore their empire. Today, Russia is an autocratic country that is trying to convince the world that Ukraine does not exist. For us, colonialism is not just about creating economic dependence, exploitation, and extraction. It is also about conquest and subjugation, which Ukraine is now enduring. Colonialism is also about power that convinces the world that bad things are good, and evil is justified.

At the #ShiftThePower summit, we all learned that we face the same issues in our different contexts, such as powerless local communities, forced neutrality, politically correct wording, and pressure for half-baked peace. We see the same patterns and can learn much from each other. There are over 30 wars and conflicts in the world today. We must not forget about any of them. For us Ukrainians, this is our modern, very acute struggle for liberation.

But our request to all is: let’s begin with inclusive listening to one another. We must be in solidarity with each other and be sure that we are fighting for one goal—to improve the lives of our local communities. We must share our grief, but not compare it. By going through similar experiences, we can forge closer bonds through empathy, which will fuel the strength in our communities to truly #ShiftThePower.