Svitlana Zalishchuk


Svitlana Zalishchuk is a politician, public leader, journalist, and human rights campaigner and former member of Ukrainian Parliament.
In the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election Zalishchuk lost reelection as an independent candidate in a single-seat constituency in Cherkasy Oblast. She is a foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk.

Education

National Taras Shevchenko University, Institute of Journalism
Awarded John Smith Fellowship Programme, June–July 2008
including study of the functioning of the democratic institutions, meetings at 10 Downing Street, BBC in Glasgow and London, MPs offices, etc.
Awarded Stanford, Draper Hills Summer Fellowship, USA, July–August 2011
focus on democracy and rule of law.

Politics

Member of Parliament, Ukraine, November 2014 – present. Placed on 18th position on the party list of Petro Poroshenko Bloc, Zalishchuk was elected to the 8th Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada during the 2014 parliamentary election. Gradually she began to criticize the Petro Poroshenko Bloc more and more and stopped voting in sync with it. According to deputy head of the PPB faction Oleksiy Honcharenko by February 2019 Zalishchuk had not attended PPB faction meetings for several years. At the presidential election in March 2019, Zalishchuk is campaigning for Anatoliy Hrytsenko.

Svitlana Zalishchuk's focus of parliamentary activity includes strategic lobbying and organizing national and global campaigns on democratization, security, anticorruption, human rights, antidiscrimination, particularly gender and LGBT equality. She is the co-author of more than 30 draft laws on these issues.
Svitlana Zalishchuk is a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Chair of the Sub-Committee on European and Euro-Atlantic Integration.
Zalishchuk is the co-chair of the Parliamentary Friendship group between Ukraine and United Kingdom and a member of the Parliamentary Friendship groups between Ukraine – Norway and Ukraine – Georgia.
Svitlana Zalishchuk Member of the Parliamentary Caucus ‘Equal Opportunities’ devoted to gender issues.
Zalishchuk is a co-founder and member of the Inter-faction and ‘Anticorruption Platform’ and the founder of the Open Parliament platform in Ukraine as a part of the Open Government Partnership.
In 2015 Svitlana Zalishchuk was one of the first two MPs in Ukraine who publicly joined LGBT pride, along with Serhiy Leshchenko.
Zalishchuk has been actively involved in representing Ukraine on different international platforms, including UN, CoE, EU Parliament, etc.
As Ukrainian political leader, regular commentator in international media including the New York Times, Le Monde, Bild, Le Temps, Tages Anzeiger, Open Democracy , etc.
Member of the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe , January 2015-January 2017
Member of the joint Ukraine-EU Parliamentary Committee on Association Agreement between Ukraine and European Union, January 2015-January 2017
Promoting Ukrainian interests through strategic campaigning at the national and EU level
Member of the Steering Committee of the World Movement for Democracy, founded by National Endowment for Democracy,
Working on global human rights campaigns
In August 2016 she, Serhiy Leshchenko and Mustafa Nayyem from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc joined to Democratic Alliance. From Autumn 2015 until June 2016 they had been part of an attempt to form a political party around then Governor of Odessa Oblast Mikheil Saakashvili with members of the parliamentary group Interfactional Union "Eurooptimists", Democratic Alliance and possibly Self Reliance until this projection collapsed in June 2016.
On 28 February 2019 Zalishchuk voluntarily left the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction.
On 7 June 2019 Zalishchuk stated she wanted to take part in the July 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election as an independent candidate in a constituency. In the election she lost reelection as an independent candidate in a single-seat constituency in Cherkasy Oblast.

Human rights campaigning

Prominent leader of the EuroMaidan events in Ukraine that started in 2013 and led to the 2014 Revolution of Dignity and the beginning of democratic reform
In particular, as Executive Director of ‘Centre UA’, coordinated the largest and most influential Facebook page , which played a crucial role in the revolution: content included transformative campaigning and coordination of strategic messaging to a daily audience of up to 4 million readers, 2013-2014.
Co-founder and Executive Director of the Kyiv-based ‘Centre of United Actions’ NGO
Focused on media and anticorruption reforms, 2009-2014
Co-founder and member of the Reanimation Package of Reforms civic platform
That after the 2014 Revolution of Dignity united more than 50 NGOs and several hundreds experts and activists for building and promotion of democratic reforms in Ukraine. Dozens of the reformist draft laws elaborated by RPR were adopted by the parliament in 2014.
Co-founder and coordinator of CHESNO movement
CHESNO united hundreds of NGOs across Ukraine, aimed at imposing anticorruption and integrity processes upon the public sector, including Ukrainian parliamentarians and public servants. Examples included legislative reform to ensure the integrity of the voting in the Parliament and also electronic declarations of assets for public servants, 2011-2014.
Co-founder and member of the influential journalist movement Stop Censorship!
Сoordinated one hundred prominent Ukrainian journalists to campaign against censorship, promote media reforms, and fight for journalists’ rights, 2010 – 2014.

Government

Press-officer to the Deputy Prime Minister on European Integration in Ukraine, July–September 2005
Led communication team of the newly created office in the Ukrainian Government of the Deputy Prime-Minister on European Integration after so-called Orange Revolution, when Ukraine started its integration processes with EU: tasks included media planning, preparation of briefings, information requests and interviews, coordination with journalists
Spokesperson to the Chief of Staff of the President of Ukraine and Head of the Department of Information in the Main Information Service in the Administration of the President of Ukraine, September 2005-October 2006
Deputy Chief of Staff to the Advisor of the President on European and Euro-Atlantic integration, 2006-2009
Anchor of live political TV-show on TVi TV-Channel: “From the other side”
Devoted to parliamentary elections in Ukraine, September–October 2012
International reporter at the ‘Fifth TV-Channel’, Ukraine, 2003-2005
The only independent TV-Channel during Orange Revolution. In 2004, journalists initiated nationwide journalist movement against censorship.
Journalist for the First National Radio Channel in Ukraine, 2003
media reports on topical political and cultural issues
Freelance journalist, 2009–present
for various Ukrainian media and social media, including newsprint; ‘Novoe Vriemia’ , Ukrainska Pravda , Delovaya Stolitsa , Volunteer magazine
Editor-in-Chief of the National student Magazine ‘World of Communication’, 2001-2003
Creation and management of the first national student magazine of the Institute of Journalism, Ukraine

Lectures and presentations

Expert lecturer and featured speaker, 2009 – present
Recognized as one of the emerging leaders of Ukraine in 2013 by Washington based, US-Ukraine Foundation in Project
Recognized as one of the top-100 most influential women in Ukraine by Focus Magazine and Novoe Vriemia Magazine in , and
Named as a ‘bravest’ women of the Munich Security Conference by German Bild Newspaper in
Svitlana Zalishchuk: "Mister Medvedev, together with President Putin you’ve turned to the page of war, aggression and instability in Europe. Basically you’ve started killing in Georgia, then in Ukraine and now in Syria. I have a question for you: Why don’t you approve the mandate of the United Nations to investigate MH17 as the precondition to restore the trust that you have mentioned in your speech. As well as: Why don’t you ratify the Rome Statute while acknowledging the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court as the precondition for this international dialogue that you have mentioned in your speech. Or do you think that you are going to avoid the international justice for the war crimes and crimes against humanity? Thank you".
Awarded ,, international award for human rights defenders: a woman or young person with "the courage to fight indifference, prejudice, oppression and injustices in order to promote a good life for all people in an environment marked by respect for human rights"

Personal life

On July 21, 2018, Svitlana Zalishchuk Wayne Jordash.

Social media

Svitlana Zalishchuk has a significant number of followers on her and accounts.

Selected speeches and publications

  1. , Kyiv Post
  2. , Kyiv Post
  3. , personaldemocracy.com
  4. , personaldemocracy.com
  5. , personaldemocracy.com
  6. , greenmediabox.eu
  7. , The Moscow Times
  8. , Radio Télévision Suisse
  9. , Le Temps
  10. , Tages Anzeiger
  11. , opendemocracy.net
  12. , BuzzFeed News
  13. , New York Times
  14. , New York Times
  15. , Le Point
  16. , Le Monde
  17. , Tribune de Geneve
  18. , Le Monde