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New Publications Program

Dear Friends,

I would like to inform you about the Jacyk Foundation's most recent project which, I hope, you will find important and interesting. Like all of our programs, we established this project using our own money. However, now we are looking for corporate and private partners to take it to a new level. In general, the participation in the project does not require large contributions. As little as US$60 (approx CAD$90) can make a concrete and tangible difference.

Without getting into great detail, the project is this. As you may know, the situation of the Ukrainian-language publications and, by extension, of Ukrainian writers and scholars in today's Ukraine is extremely difficult. Due to the unfair tax system and general economic decline, most Ukrainian-language journals and publishing houses are on the verge of bankruptcy. As a result of this, not only most of Ukrainian writers and scholars have not been paid for months and cannot support themselves and their families, but the Ukrainian publications are disappearing, taken over by Russian ones, most of which are financed by large Russian companies (often linked to organized crime). This is a very dangerous situation which may have dire consequences for Ukraine, our language and culture.

Our Foundation is trying to help by providing a very concrete and cost-effective financial support. We pay the authors' honoraria for their articles, short stories, scholarly studies, etc., published by Ukraine's leading journals. We also pay the translators who translate into Ukrainian the most needed material from Western sources. These authors'/translators' honoraria range from US$60 to US$150 per publication (depending on the length of the text and the journal in which it is printed).

By designing our program in this way we achieve three goals simultaneously:

1. We help the author who receives money he/she very much needs and deserves for his/her work; the author can support himself/herself and his/her family and continue to work;
2. We help Ukraine's leading journals by paying the costs of their material; the journals can use the money they save to improve their operation and become financially stronger, so that at some point in the future they will be able to pay the authors from their own funds; they can also improve the quality of their publications by commissioning their material from the best authors;
3. And, perhaps most importantly, each and every donation has a very concrete result--it enriches the Ukrainian culture by one additional literary or scholarly work; it spreads the message of democracy and Ukrainian patriotism to the Ukrainian society.

This project already works and has had a tremendously positive impact on the journals and authors we have been supporting. (Our most fruitful cooperation is with the journal (and publishing house) Krytyka--a very high-quality Ukrainian equivalent of the New York Times Literary Supplement). However, we can help only a limited number of people and publications with the funds we have. We have already been joined by a number of private sponsors who sponsor anywhere from a single one to fifty or more publications. This has been a great help, but the need is still much, much greater.

Each private donor for each contribution (US$60-US$150 [approx. CAD$90-$200]) becomes a sponsor of one article, short story, translation, etc. Each of our donors receives:

1. an honorary mention in the journal;
2. a thank-you letter from the journal specifying the title of the sponsored work and the name of the author;
3. an income-tax receipt from our Foundation.

Apart from that, there is also a possibility to sponsor book publications in leading publishing houses, but this, of course, requires a more substantial donation.

I hope that you will appreciate the importance of this program and its efficiency. Unlike most Ukrainian institutions, we always try to make sure that our donor's each and every dollar goes to support a concrete good deed, that it produces a concrete valuable result, and that it brings the donor due recognition. We minimize any possible administrative/overhead costs and maximize the results achieved for each dollar.

I very much hope that some of you (and your friends/acquaintances) will decide to join our project with a support for at least one, but, if possible, more publications. If so, please make your donations payable to "PJEF - Ukrainian Journals Fund" (since a special Fund has been created for this project at our Foundation) and mail it to our address:

Petro Jacyk Educational Foundation
1260 Eglinton Ave. East
Mississauga ON L4W 1K8
Canada

If you require more information about this project or any other activity sponsored by our Foundation, do not hesitate to write/e-mail/phone (m.stech@utoronto.ca, tel: (905) 238-0467; fax: (905) 625-8445).

We would be grateful if you could spread word of our project to your friends, family members and acquaintances.

With best regards!
Marko Stech

__________________________
Dr. Marko Stech
Managing Director
m.stech@utoronto.ca
Petro Jacyk Educational Foundation
1260 Eglinton Ave. East
Mississauga ON L4W 1K8
tel: (905) 238-0467; fax: (905) 625-8445

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