We Have Issued an Annual Report for 2018
For over twenty years now, the Pontis Foundation has been bringing together NGOs, firms, individuals, institutions, and good officials. Our goal is to enable every citizen to make responsible decisions about their lives and to have the necessary skills, attitudes and values to do so and to fulfil their potential. We greatly appreciate that last year, we were awarded the Woodrow Wilson Award by the US Embassy in Slovakia for this effort.
This showed us three things:
→ The importance of our roots and value anchorage in our current attitudes directly related to people who have walked this path ahead of us and are still here to help us. Much was accomplished. We have a quality civil society, the foundations of a market economy, institutions, etc. We are part of the democratic, European and transatlantic community. However, many challenges, even the primary ones, remain unresolved.
→ This country depends on its people. The potential of Slovakia is being fulfilled by a number of social innovators, carriers of changes within the institutions, as well as social and financial capital creators, who fight for real changes in the functioning of education, health care, judiciary, prosecutor’s office and for systemic changes. At Pontis Foundation, we strive to be a bridge, an engine, a source and energy for these people.
→ The constant struggles with the government to achieve elementary changes in the system can no longer be the way. At a time when the world around us is moving forward at a dizzying pace, and the complexity of problems to be solved is a challenge in itself, we need a country where we all work together. We need a state that works for people. A state led by honest and wise people.
At Pontis Foundation, we will continue to do everything we can to help raise citizens’ awareness of democracy, social innovation, philanthropy, and real, principled and sustainable solutions for the planet through education and responsible entrepreneurship.
Thank you for being with us this year, you have been our inspiration, our advisors and mentors. Together with you, we have been able to fight for a decent Slovakia and move forward. I would like to express our sincere gratitude on behalf of my colleagues, too.
Written by Lenka Surotchak, Executive Director of the Pontis Foundation in her speech published in the Pontis Foundation Annual Report 2018.
