Association for Democracy Assistance and Human Rights

Founded-2008

DEMAS- Association for Democracy Assistance and Human Rights

DEMAS is a Czech organization founded in 2008 which is an amalgamation of 11 NGOs and 5 observer status organizations, Including the likes of Amnesty International. DEMAS, and the organizations within focus on supporting democracy and upholding human and civil rights within the Czech republic and international. They state their mission as being "Ready to serve the cause of democracy, human rights and civil society whenever and wherever the need arises." . Funding for DEMAS initially came mostly from the Czech Republic government itself, and through programs meant to offer funding for NGOs. Such as NED or the National Endowment for Democracy, NED funding is given out by the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs. DEMAS is also funded by the European Union, European Commission, private donors, and other governmental grants and funds.

DEMAS works with other NGOs and groups through both local and international partners to undertake the work of assisting them in their causes. They work to create links between Czech and international organizations, creating a transnational support network for NGOs. Allowing NGOs to work around possible blocking factors in their countries that prevent them from doing their work, additionally DEMAS works to help other organizations obtain funding. They also organize and host seminars and workshops on human and civil rights, and democracy. Working to aid other organizations, create transnational support networks and organize public awareness campaigns make up the actions of DEMAS.

Members

DEMAS has 16 participating members (including observer status members):

Agora (Central Europe): are focused on promoting and improving standards and methods involved with political life in the Czech Republic, post-Soviet satellites, and the Balkan states. The organization holds town halls, panels, professional training conferences, as well as other activities meant to promote democracy. Agora serves as a bridge of contact between the people and their multiple levels of government, as well as governments of their regional neighbors.

Amnesty International: are a large International organization with millions of members from all around the world, with many regions and countries having their own sections. They are an organization that campaign for a wide range of issues from women's rights, peoples economic and socio-economic rights, and many others. The Czech chapter of Amnesty International is the largest contributor to DEMAS from under the banner of Amnesty International.

Association for International Affairs (AMO): are an organization that conducts research and offers education to other organizations on International affairs. They open themselves up to serve as a platform which allows economic, academic, and governmental organizations and figures to meet, learn, and discuss international affairs.

Caritas of the Archdiocese of Prague: are a religious organization that serve to help the homeless, at-risk people, the elderly, and victims of crime, they also provide humanitarian aid to Sub-Saharan countries and India. They work to make connections with other churches and religious organizations abroad, serving to expand a transnational network of religious organizations.

CASLA Institute Prague: are an NGO that focuses on the study of Latin-America and serves as DEMAS' arm into Latin America which serves to spread and strengthen Democracy in the South American region, as well as participate actively in human rights campaigning.

CEELI Institute: is a non-profit organization that provides professional legal education. They work to spread and strengthen understanding and implementation of law, through working with local and foreign judiciary bodies.

Center for Community Organizing (CpKP): are an NGO that work with local governments within the European Union, providing to them assistance and education with EU policy and policy changes. They have a focus on public programs and initiatives like housing developments, public spaces, and economic planning.

CEVRO: is an NGO that works to support politicians and democracy by providing seminars, workshops, and other activities to build up skill that support Democracy.

Democracy and Culture Studies Center (CDK): is a non-profit organization that took up the initiatives of publishing and monitoring of democracy before 1989.

Forum 2000 Foundation: works to continue the legacy of Václav Havel who was the first democratic president of the Czech Republic (add wiki article link), by promoting Democracy, human rights, religious and ethnic tolerance, and development. They serve as a platform for world leaders to discuss and debate these specific issues.

Institute for European Policy (Europeum): is an independent think-tank focused on the issue of European integration, working to research and publish reports to introduce ideas about integration into the European Union governmental body.

International Association Civic Belarus: works to support NGOs in Belarus who do not have legal permission to operate under their current government (that of Alexander Lukashenka). They create connections for these NGOs with Czech organizations to promote cooperation and transfer of social and political expertise.

PASOS, the Policy Association for and Open Society: is a collection of 30 independent think tanks from Europe and Asia that work to promote an open society, Democracy, and human rights, together they publish reports that serve to outline the challenges that stand in the way of an open society.

People in Need (PIN): are an organization that provides and creates social programs to help those in need in the Czech Republic and post-Soviet states, as well as countries abroad. They also work to support NGOs that support democracy in unfriendly environments, as well as directly supporting dissidents in non-Democratic countries. PIN also organize an annual film festival called the One World Documentary Film Festival, and awards the Homo Homini to someone who they deem to have shown personal courage and commitment to promoting democracy and human rights.

Transitions Online: are an international publishing and media organizations operating in the post-Soviet states that work to improve professionalism and cover news outside that of the mainstream media.

Transparency International CZ (TI-CZ): are an organization that fight against governmental corruption and provide legal education to the public about corruption in an effort to promote transparency and protect public interest. They operate in the Czech republic, Egypt, Ukraine, and the Balkans.

Funding

Each organization participating within DEMAS have their own independent forms and initiatives for funding, some are non-profit, and others funded entirely by private donation. DEMAS was initially funded by the Czech ministry of foreign affairs but is now supported by membership fees, private donations and grants for which it qualifies. DEMAS is fiscally independent from any government and so all action and initiatives undertaken by the organization are decided internally from members of the organization.

Role

DEMAS serves as a body in which all members can freely interact and support one another, allowing for the creation of networks within the network of Demas itself. Creating a large transnational network of organizations with similar missions and initiatives or skills that help increase professionalism and expertise for each organization to more effectively run their undertakings and support of Democracy. This large network of support allows each group to have more influence at home and abroad, which in turn allows them to have a larger positive impact. DEMAS also act as a partner with their members in setting up and hosting debates, seminars, summits, conferences, and workshops, throughout the year many members of DEMAS such as Forum 2000 host summits or other events that are often mediated by DEMAS as well as promoted by them. Without the support available many organization may not have near the influence or effectiveness they have due to their vast support of knowledgeable organizations.

DEMAS produces annual reports on the activities and actions of its member organizations which outline their work and initiatives, and plans for the future. Their first report was produced 1 year after their creation (2008) in 2009 and have continued producing them through 2016, with their 2012 report being the largest they have ever produced.

DEMAS are also a consistent participant in the annual NGO market, where they interact with the general public and hand out educational material on the work of NGOs, organizations, and their missions. This is their largest role apart from creating a space for information sharing, to raise awareness and start conversations about Democracy in the public sphere.

Staff

Board of Directors

Sylva Horáková

Jakub Klepal

Pavel Pšeja (Chairman)

Marek Svoboda (Vice-Chairperson)

Vladimíra Votavová

Executive director

Sabina Malcová

Project Coordinator

Veronika Soporská

Comment

Hello! This is a pretty interesting article and will be a great contribution to the world of human rights and humanitarian organizations Wikipedia pages. I have a few suggestions that you may want to consider as we work towards the final product of our class assignment:

-For the overall structure, you might want to move some topics around such as the introduction of the organization, its role, funding, members, and then the current staff. Try linking words to other Wikipedia pages by highlighting a word and using the chain symbol in the userpage tool bar.

-I noticed that the sources that you used are from the NGOs' websites, try finding multiple scholarly sources that create a more well-rounded perspective of the organization's role in human rights. In addition, you make statements such as "DEMAS is also funded by the European Union, European Commission, private donors, and other governmental grants and funds",but there isn't a source to back up this statement. This statement should be in the funding section. The first paragraph does not have many sources to back up all the information that I am given neither does the funding, role, or staff sections. You should have a lot more sources in these sections along with more concrete examples. The members are important, but not as important the organization. I want to know more about how the different members come together to create this organization; give me examples of the claims made in the 'role' section. Overall, get more scholarly sources such as studies, criticisms made by authors/counter criticisms from other authors, works written about their role, more information on their staff(their stances within the organization, what are their ideologies)-just try to expand the over all view point of the organization so we can get a neutral understanding of such valuable organization.

-Last thing! Look over your grammar and sentence structure-combine some sentences such as the introduction sentence and avoid run-on sentences. Remove the addition to the first sentence, 'including the likes of Amnesty international' shows a bit of favoritism.

Keep up the good work, its a bit difficult to find a lot of sources when researching these kinds of topics, but with a bit more digging, I am sure you can find it. Congratulations!

Cdronet14 (talk) 22:29, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Daniellaperriere (talk) 22:32, 16 March 2018 (UTC)Hello,

This article is a concise and detailed summary of the DEMAS organization. However, there are a few examples of Wikipedia conduct that should be reviewed.

Structure-wise, you cover many important aspects of DEMAS that clearly defines how the organization functions and what its goals are. However, I found the article to be lacking in substantive examples of the group’s actions and findings. Also, I believe the Role of DEMAS as well as its funding to be important details to know about the organization before the members. It would help the reader better understand DEMAS and provide more context about the different groups involved.

The majority of the article properly summarizes DEMAS in a fair, neutral manner. But there are a couple of instances where your wording could be interpreted as biased. To a lesser degree, the first example is in the first line where you mention how DEMAS is made of many NGO’s and observer groups, including Amnesty International. While we know, this is the largest and most prolific group, it does not seem like you are completely neutral, and that Amnesty International makes the group that much better. Secondly, at the end of the first paragraph under Role, it is implied that without DEMAS, some of the organizations would not be as influential and effective. A more neutral way to write this sentence might follow the lines of, “exposure, access to resources and information are increased for the NGO’s that comprise DEMAS.”

Lastly, your article would serve as a more comprehensive and credible if more sources we’re used. As most of your sources were used for the members, it shows that the article would benefit from more research detailing the group’s actions, and sources of their funding and findings of their reports.

All in all the article is close to being a very good summary, and with these few changes it could be well on its way to being a legitimate Wikipedia article. Keep up the hard work, congratulations!