Dear members, partners, supporters and friends,
For some time now we have felt the need to rename our organization. Our story starts with a group of young people in Berlin in the month of December, who founded the association in 2012 in the context of protests against falsified elections in Russia and the arrests of feminist activists. As many regional networks, our association significantly grew over the years as well as the diversity of our projects and team members. The name Dekabristen does not reflect these developments, our regional focus and our approach of collaborating, seeing all actors as equals.
February 2022, with the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia marks a turning point for the work of our NGO. This culmination of Russia's aggression against Ukraine since 2014 has had a significant impact on our projects and cooperations, and the way we work together.
The civil societies in the regions we work currently navigate through multiple crises and challenges (read below). To continue fostering horizontal cooperation between and with the representatives of the civil societies of Eastern Europe, Central and Northern Asia, the North and South Caucasus, and beyond, we have reworked our mission and renamed our association from January 2024 to Coopera e. V.
Thank you & How to reach us
We would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to all the people whom we have met along the way, cooperating and exchanging with us, volunteering and supporting. Thank you for contributing to our association, projects and mission. We have great memories of the last 12 years.
We hope to stay in contact and invite you to follow our activities in the future on our new website coopera.io, funded by the Deutsche Stiftung für Engagement und Ehrenamt (DSEE), and on our new channels on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
You can also reach us via our new email address info@coopera.io.
Civil societies in Eastern Europe navigating times of crises
The civil societies in Eastern Europe, Central and Northern Asia, the North and South Caucasus face multiple crises and challenges. Authoritarian movements and leaders fuel conflicts and violate basic human rights. In many countries, spaces for civil societies shrink and repressions grow. Protests are being suppressed, people are arrested and detained, new repressive laws are introduced, restricting funding opportunities for activists, artists and NGOs, and so-called “anti-gender” politics expanded, making life unbearable for everyone who falls out of the “traditional” binary.
Contemporary Russia continues its imperialist and colonial project. Together with military aggression, these actions destroy the freedom that people in the region have taken back after the fall of the USSR, while still struggling with the lasting impact of Russian colonialism. Information wars raise the need to combat disinformation and foster media literacy. Forced migration changes people’s lives, societies and places. Meanwhile, the climate crisis is unstoppably unfolding, affecting the most vulnerable groups of societies. The economic and physical security, as well as the mental and physical health of representatives of civil societies are becoming more and more fragile.
In these challenging times, our association stands in solidarity with civil society initiatives and activists who shape democracies and fight against repressions, inform and research, raise awareness, create and practice. More than ever, we strive to create opportunities and to collaborate with activists and initiatives in the fields of urbanism, sustainability, media, (queer)feminism, antiracism, and political education. We cooperate with NGO and media workers, artists and activists in exile, and advocate for the interests of the civil societies of Eastern Europe, Central and Northern Asia, and the North and South Caucasus in Germany and the EU.
We invite you to read about our areas of work and current projects in 2024 on our new website.