Humanitarianism in
A Post-Soviet World:
The Czech Republic and
The People in Need Foundation

By Dr. Thomas F. Ditzler and Maj. Richard De Leon

Recent History of the Czech Republic
With the end of Soviet domination in 1989, Czechoslovakia
underwent profound changes in virtually all of its social and political systems including the “Velvet Revolution” of January, 1993 in which independent Czech and Slovak Republics were brought into being. By 1995 the Czech Republic had reorganized much of its economic system and became the first former communist nation to re-establish a foreign aid program. At the same time, a number of Czech nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) initiated independent fund raising and became active in Central and Eastern Europe. Among the most effective and widely known of these is the People in Need Foundation (PINF). In October of 2003, the authors visited the Czech Republic to interview members of the senior leadership of PINF to gain a greater understanding of PINF projects and the role of humanitarian aid from the perspective of a re-emergent nation.

The People In Need Foundation
The People in Need Foundation is a non-profit, non-governmental organization whose stated mission is “to inspire a largeness of spirit in Czech society by helping others in need, and to promote democratic freedoms for all.” The origins of the organization can be traced to 1988 and the efforts of Simon Pánek, a then 21-year-old biology undergraduate student from Prague. Pánek and some friends learned of the major earthquake that had struck Armenia, killing 25,000 and leaving half a million homeless. Pánek was a student activist with a strong commitment to humanitarianism and the scope of the disaster in Armenia impelled him to take action. Using his contacts and experience as a student activist, Pánek organized an innovative public fundraising campaign dubbed “SOS Karabakh.” The initiative used television and radio spots to appeal for funds and the Czech people soon responded with $80,000 for the effort. With the money, Pánek and his team bought food, blankets, and clothing; the relief package was augmented by medicines contributed by Czech hospitals. Pánek persuaded the manager of Prague’s largest supermarket to provide storage and enlisted the support of the Soviet embassy to make available an Aeroflot a plane to move the supplies to Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, where a convoy of trucks transported the cargo to the earthquake victims.

With the completion of the earthquake response, Pánek returned to his life as a human rights activist, but his timely and innovative response to the Armenian disaster was to become a template for action that would change the face of Czech humanitarian aid. In 1992, Jaromir Stetina, a Czech journalist working in Russia, called Pánek to express his concerns about the escalating conflict between Armenians of the Nagorny-Karabakh enclave and the government of Azerbaijan. Once again Pánek turned to the airwaves to raise money for victims; it was to be the beginning of a remarkable career. The next year, Panek’s newly formed People In Need Foundation began its first major fundraising campaign to aid victims of the Balkan conflict, “SOS Sarajevo.” Once again the media played an important role, and by 1994 PINF formally affiliated with Czech TV, the country’s public service television network. As a partner in the organization, Czech TV provides material assistance, access to information, and the means for PINF to reach a large audience. In addition, PINF later partnered with the Czech Ministries of Foreign Affairs and the Interior. The Foundation leadership acknowledges the relationship has had its share of challenges, but the shift towards more effective collaboration between humanitarian organizations and the Czech government has continued to yield positive results.1 Since its founding in 1992, PINF has provided more than $30 million U.S. dollars for relief and related assistance in 27 countries and regions and has served the Czech populace as a domestic resource as well.

Public and institutional confidence in PINF is reflected in the selection of PINF as the first NGO from Central and Eastern Europe to become an implementing partner of UNICEF; it is now an accepted partner of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, World Health Organization, International Committee of the Red Cross, the World Food Programme, the City of Prague, the Open Society Fund, Foundation for Civil Society (PHARE), the Charles S. Mott Foundation, and the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy.

Foreign Programs
PINF’s foreign missions have provided relief and rehabilitation for a number of the worlds most problematic humanitarian crises — Afghanistan, Burma, Chechnya / Ingushetia, Cuba, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, Serbia, Ukraine and others.The range of services are as diverse as the affected populations and their problems: refugee transport; school and home reconstruction; teaching materials distribution (in concert with the UN Back To School campaign); emergency food distribution; and health care aid, including medicines, clinic reconstruction, and a “Mobile Clinic” to help with individual evacuations.

People in Need complements its direct relief works through vigorous human rights advocacy. In Cuba, PINF has been involved in the long-term support of Cuban dissidents and independent journalists. The foundation’s co-operators distribute medicines and finances to the sick, and to the families of those in prison. Cuba’s independent journalists also benefit from the foundation’s contribution of cameras, Dictaphones, and computers. In Belarus, PINF supports democratic forces including the independent media, youth groups and NGOs; Belarusian lawyers, journalists, economists and teachers benefit from material support and training.

Domestic Programs
PINF is also active at home. In addition to providing humanitarian aid in natural disasters such as the summer floods of 2002, PINF works actively in the Czech Republic to encourage a spirit of tolerance and multicultural openness through projects in support of multicultural education, coexistence, and anti-racism campaigns. One of the most effective is the Terrain Social Work Project, intended to improve relations between the Czech majority and disenfranchised minority groups, including the Czech Republic’s largest minority, the Roma (Gypsies). Since 1998, the project has provided social workers that partner with individual clients in their home environments to serve as “change agents” in supportive relationships. The focus of the efforts addresses social problems such as violence, low school attendance, drug and alcohol abuse and sexually transmitted diseases including HIV-AIDS. The goal of the program is to improve the educational and social environments of socially excluded citizens in ways that increase individual social literacy and self-reliance. The Terrain-Roma project enjoys support from the Civil Society Development Foundation (funded by the EU Phare program), the Open Society Fund, and the Via Foundation. In a related program, The Varianty Project focuses on the development of intercultural curricula and education activities for primary and secondary schools and universities throughout the Czech Republic. In addition, the project is home to a social research initiative that has explored the relationships between neighbors and the perception of different cultural qualities in Czech society.

PINF extends the reach of humanitarianism to the creative arts. PINF Co-founder Czech TV, sponsors the One World Film Festival, one of the largest and most prestigious human rights film festivals in Europe. This year, the April event featured 15 full-length documentaries, numerous speakers and workshops. The Festival is the forum for the presentation of the Homo Homini Award given annually by the People in Need Foundation to “persons with outstanding merits in promoting human rights, democracy, and the non-violent resolution of political conflicts.” This year’s recipient was Serbian human rights campaigner Nataa Kandi. The 2004 Festival marked the founding of the Human Rights Film Network (HRFN), designed to bring together representative of established and new partners in human rights film festivals from around the world.

Another example of PINF's creative outreach and community engagement is illustrated through its association with the Information Center on NATO. Although not directly affiliated with NATO, this combined Czech/Polish NGO’s mission is “to increase the general public's knowledge of NATO affairs,” according to Mr. Zoltan Kalman, Project Manager. With a primary academic focus geared toward college professors and students, the Center conducts frequent lectures, seminars, and classes on creating cooperative interaction between NGOs and government agencies and fostering civil-military collaboration.

Of particular note is their groundbreaking youth-oriented Aliante Program, which was begun in 2000 as a hands-on International Affairs competition for intermediate, high school, and college students from the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. The Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs, NATO, and the student competitors themselves fund the effort. According to Kalman, the program’s goal is to help young people expand their definition of “international security” to include more than just military strength. Aliante engages dozens of teams in a three-tiered competition. The First Round is conducted on-line and consists of 20 questions on international affairs and current events. Teams that correctly answer 15 of the 20 questions move on to the Second Round that involves written responses to 35 international affairs and civil-military operations related questions. Each response must have its sources cited and is judged by an international team of political scientists. The six top teams from each country progress to the Third Round that in 2004 will be held for the first time outside of the Czech Republic at the military academy in Wroclaw, Poland. Finalists will be randomly re-organized into 14 six-member international teams to provide a more realistic multi-national problem-solving environment. The competition involves not only academic projects, but rigorous physical and psychological components. According to Kalman, success is determined “primarily on participants ability to co-operate at an international level under severe conditions.” Fittingly, the prizes are as international as the competition; this year’s top three teams will win a ten-day international trip that includes visits to: NATO Headquarters in Brussels; Headquarters for Multinational Regiment for Defence against Weapons of Mass Destruction in Liberec, Czech Republic; NAMSA Agency (coordinates the armament of NATO member states), Luxembourg; NATO AWACS reconnaissance aircraft base, Germany; and the Royal Navy Base, Portsmouth, United Kingdom.

The NATO Information Center believes this unique competition to be an invaluable tool in the development of collaborative civil societies. The stated goal of the effort is to raise consciousness and embed core values of international cooperation, understanding, and peaceful co-existence into the social fabric of future generations. Further information on the Aliante Project can be obtained at their website, www.project-aliante.org.

Issues of Accountability
Part of PINF’s hard-won success derives from the organization’s highly evolved resourcefulness, transparency and accountability. The Foundation publishes annual reports on all PINF activities and provides highly detailed, publicly available audits and project reports that discuss the efficacy of domestic and international projects. The two-pronged approach sends the unmistakable message that they hold themselves accountable to their donors and their beneficiaries.

During discussions with PINF leadership, the authors explored the Foundation’s views on for another form of accountability: the potentially thorny issues of aid worker sustainment and mental health support for its staff. Executive Director Tomas Pojar explained that the organization’s commitment to its workers’ well being is viewed as a very important matter for which the organization has a characteristically straightforward plan of action. All employment applicants are thoroughly screened through biographical interviews, which are supported by psychological evaluations and performed by a credentialed provider. Existing field workers are given detailed background information on working environments prior to deployment. In addition, worker deployments are limited to 1-year contracts and total worker field time to a maximum of 5 years; senior field workers return to PINF Headquarters to provide oversight of operations. Pojar pointed out that fielding small, closely-knit teams of 3-5 workers provides cohesion and minimizes some of the security threats that can attend to large-scale operations. PINF leadership also works with staff to foster a deep respect for their consumers that is reflected in the Foundation’s strong commitment to the development of self-sustaining resources and institutions for those they serve.

A few Impressions
The People in Need Foundation is well positioned in Prague. Released from decades of communist repression, the Czech people have enthusiastically embraced a clear commitment to humanitarian principles of sovereignty: democracy, pluralism, voluntarism, universal human rights, and transparent governance. Much of the energy for this commitment reflects the spirit of idealism that fueled the engines of change during the period of transition from soviet satellite to re-emergent center of learning and humanity. PINF Executive Director Pojar says in the Foundation’s mission statement: “We believe that only by systematically informing and educating the general public—particularly younger generations—about the globalized world and the fundamental values of open, democratic societies can the Czech Republic fully accept its share of global responsibility…This means not only informing and educating ‘from above’—by representatives of the state and political figures—but also ‘from below’—from the level of civil society.” In an interview with TIME Magazine, Founder Simon Panek remarked on his own motivation for his work with typical pragmatism saying he was not driven by charity. I am angry with the injustices which keep happening around the world.” 2

The point was brought home clearly to the authors who, at the end of the interview were hurriedly asked to excuse the senior staff from the premises. Said Pojar: “I’m sorry, but we have to go now…we’re meeting our colleagues at the Cuban Embassy to protest human rights abuses…”

NOTE: The authors wish to thank the following people for their time and energy in support of this effort: From the People In Need Foundation: Tomas Pojar, Executive Director; Jan Plesinger, International Liaison Officer and Jiri Velensky, Desk Officer for Iraq. From the Information Center On NATO: Zoltan Kalman, Project Manager. From the VIA Foundation: Jiri Barta, Director; Carol Hockman, (Friends of VIA, US).

1. Hancilova, B. Czech humanitarian assistance, 1993-1998. The Journal of Humanitarian Assistance, October1, 2000
2. International Velvet. TIME Europe. April 28, 2003. Vol. 161 No. 17