Essay Contest: ‘10 years of Euromaidan: how European values determined the path of Ukraine’

Who is eligible?

Any citizen of Ukraine aged 16-25 years old who wants to share reflections or experierences of the Revolution of Dignity events of 2013-2014 and its impact on Ukraine and its European future.

#TogetherWeAreEurope

How it works

The contest will be held in several stages:

• • Official announcement and acceptance of entries kick-off – December 12, 2023
  • Writing, submission, and acceptance of entries

All contestants are invited to write their essays, which must meet the requirements and defined criteria, as well as be submitted for review and evaluation before the established deadline.

Entry submission deadline – January 14, 2024

All entries must be sent via email to ceu4u@eu4ukraine.news

Subject lines and file names are required to match completely (example: Essay Contest_Maria Ivanenko»)

The essay should contain a title page, where the participant must indicate his/her name, surname, date of birth, city/town/village, contact phone number and email.

The copyright of the essays is retained by the authors.

By submitting the entries for the contest, participants hereby consent that their personal data, quote, photos and/or videos provide by them and/or created by organisers, are allowed to be used for the following purposes:

• • to be filed, processed and used in the internal documentation (e.g. project reports) and in the photo pools of ‘Communіcating EU to Ukrainians’ project and project partners (all given personal data);
  • publication as a part of public relations work: on public internet, social media, flyers, brochures, mass media (the data like: the name and surname, date of birth, city/town/village, the position and compa­ny/orga­ni­sa­tion name, the quote, the photo/video and other if needed);
  • forwarding to project partners for use in their public relations work (the data like: the name and surname, date of birth, city/town/village, the position and company/organisation name, the quote, the photo/video and other if needed).

Additional questions or clarifications requests may be addressed to Maryana Shiposh, Communication Campaign Manager, CEU4U Project at: shiposh.maryana@gmail.com by January 7, 2024.

Technical review

All entries submitted before the set deadline will undergo a meticulous review process according to the specified technical requirements and criteria.

Requirements and criteria:

• • Essays must be written in English only
  • Contestants must write their essays with no guidance from others (no co-authorship allowed)
  • Essays must be between 3500 – 4’000 characters (excluding spaces)
  • Essays must be sent via email (required format – MS Word, font – Times New Roman, size – 14)
  • Essays must not be previously published or otherwise made public prior to submission
  • An essay must be the entirely original work by the individual contestant (plagiarism or abstracting other people’s opinions are not allowed, not the use of AI)
  • Quotes are allowed but must be identified properly and not exceed 15% of the entire text; participants who use quotations should also add a link to the sources they used

Preliminary evaluation and shortlisting –
January 15-28, 2024

All entries that have passed review will be submitted for preliminary evaluation and shortlisting by the ‘Communicating EU for Ukrainians’ (CEU4U) project team that provides communication support and implements communication campaigns to raise awareness among Ukrainians about the comprehensive support the European Union has been providing to Ukraine since the full-scale Russian war.

Evaluation criteria:

• • relevance to the theme of the competition (1-10 points)
  • general expertise and awareness of the events during and since Euromaidan 10 years ago (1-10 points)
  • originality and style of one’s own (1-10 points)
  • integrity, structure, and consistency (1-10 points)
  • literacy (1-10 points)

Highest possible score per contestant from each member of the jury – 50.

Please note that essays promoting violence, use hate speech, religious and ethnic enmity, containing political agitation, overting or coverting advertising of goods, services or organisations, promote bad habits (alcoholism, drug addiction, smoking) are not allowed into the competition and will be disqualified.

Based on the preliminary evaluation, 12 entries will be shortlisted.

Judging –
January 29 –
February 21, 2024

12 shortlisted entries will be submitted for judging by a jury of experts.

Judging criteria:

• • relevance to the theme of the competition (1-5 points)
  • general expertise and awareness of the events during and since Euromaidan 10 years ago (1-5 points)
  • originality and style of one’s own (1-5 points)
  • integrity, structure, and consistency (1-5 points)
  • literacy (1-5 points)

Highest possible score per contestant from each member of the jury – 25 points.

Points received from the jury will be added up to identify the winners.

Based on judging, three contestants with highest scores will be the announced as the winners of the contest.

The jury has the right to propose additional nominations for participants who did not become winners, but whose works are considered valuable for their originality and/or other criteria.

The decisions of the organizers, the jury of the contest, including the results of voting (regardless of the methods of such voting), concerning the course of contest implementation and the determination of winners, etc., are final, not subject to appeal, clarification, cancellation, revision; all participants acknowledge, accept and agree to such decisions and warrant that they will refrain from questioning or challenging them in any way.

Awarding the winners –
March 7, 2024

The winners will receive prizes, and their essays will be published in a special dedicated column of Ukrainska Pravda (prior consent will be requested from the winners for essay publication and photos).

The 12 shortlisted contestants will receive encouragement awards.

Additionally, all the contestants who have submitted their entries will receive gifts as keepsakes.

Closing provisions

In the event of a situation involving an ambiguous interpretation of these rules, any disputed issues and/or issues not regulated by these rules, the organizers reserve the right to resolve such issues themselves.

In case of force majeure circumstances, which make it impossible for the organizers to fulfill their obligations within the specified terms, new terms will be announced additionally on the website eu4ukraine.eu

On 7 March 2024, the EU Delegation to Ukraine hosted the Award Ceremony of the winners of the Essay Contest “10 years of Euromaidan: how European values determined the path of Ukraine”. The awards were delivered by the EU Ambassador to Ukraine Katarína Mathernová.

142 works were submitted for the essay contest announced by the EU Ambassador to Ukraine Katarína Mathernová to mark the 10th anniversary of the Revolution of Dignity and the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the EU and Ukraine. The authors of the essays are young Ukrainians aged 16 to 25. They shared their thoughts and visions of the development of the events during the 2013-2014 Revolution of Dignity, their impact on Ukraine’s European and their personal future.

Following the preliminary evaluation by the Organising Committee, which made sure the essays met the announced technical criteria of the contest, 88 works were admitted to the contest, and 12 best essays were shortlisted and handed over for review to the jury, which consisted of the following members:

• • Katarína Mathernová, EU Ambassador to Ukraine;
  • Olha Stefanishyna, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine;
  • Svitlana Zalishchuk, journalist, politician, public figure, human rights activist;
  • Mustafa Nayyem, Head of the State Agency for Restoration and Infrastructure Development of Ukraine, politician, public figure, journalist, one of the initiators of the Euromaidan;
  • Ostap Stasiv, co-founder and head of the Open University of Maidan NGO, social entrepreneur, public figure;
  • Dmytro Shulha, Director of the Europe and the World programme of the International Renaissance Foundation;
  • Nataliia Khinotska, expert of the Roadmap for Engagement with the Civil Society in Ukraine II project;
  • Roman Tychkivskiy, co-founder of the Open University of Maida and the Ukrainian Leadership Academy;
  • Sevgil Musayeva, journalist, editor-in-chief of the Ukrainska Pravda online publication.

On 21 February 2024, the jury completed their reviews of essays and determined the three winners of the Essay Contest “10 years of Euromaidan: how European values determined the path of Ukraine”.

The winners are:

• • Shekurie Ramazanova (Bucha),
  • Vladyslav Satsiuk (Kyiv),
  • Yelyzaveta Khodorovska (Odesa).