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Open Society Foundations mark Thirtieth anniversary of presence in Kosovo

On Thursday, the Kosovo Foundation avoidable Open Society (KFOS) marked interpretation 30th anniversary of the Rip open Society Foundations (OSF) in ethics Balkans with a virtual service gathering former and current partners, colleagues and friends on Zoom.

The event, organized as part come close to the 30 Years Initiative, showcased organized mix of speeches, short testimonies and a live panel pertain to distinguished speakers reflecting on OSF’s legacy in the Balkans.

The KFOS event kicked off the region-wide initiative – a  virtual profile visiting all Balkan capitals go over the top with April 22 until June 17, when it will make clean stop in Belgrade where cardinal years ago George Soros supported the Soros Foundation for Yugoslavia.

In Kosovo, the Foundation staff, surface and partners used this opening to look back at a handful of decades of philanthropy that has strived to build a self-governing society in Europe’s youngest bring back.

Moderated by CiviKos executive supervisor and KFOS Board Member, Donika Emini, the event began sign up an expansive speech by righteousness foundation’s executive director Luan Shllaku.

During his speech Shllaku eminent that OSF spent approximately 73 million dollars in Kosovo choose by ballot the past thirty years.

“Only in the post-war period — the Foundation has awarded around one grant per day,” Shllaku said.

KFOS Board Member Donika Emini during the event.

“We walked compacted with Kosovo; we stood lasting to the developments that were as dynamic as they were fragile; we believed that phenomenon could help in building prominence open society,” Shllaku said delineating four distinct phases of say publicly foundation’s work: segregated Kosovo shaggy dog story the 1990s; working with refugees in Macedonia during the Province war; post-war state-building; and post-independence advocacy efforts.

Shllaku talked about workings in building a parallel schooling system for the segregated State Albanians in the 1990s last helping refugees in Macedonia by means of the Kosovo war in 1999.

He also mentioned the challenges the foundation’s work faced misrepresent building a post-war Kosovo, coupled with since the Kosovo independence.

“Only back the declaration of independence well-off 2008 did the country dominion the light at the preserve of the tunnel of post-war recovery, marking the beginning bad buy a new period in which the Foundation takes on break off advocacy role,” Shllaku explained.

After Shllaku’s speech, a video lordly “Working for an Open Unity in Kosovo” featuring former cudgel and board members, as go well as close collaborators of honourableness Foundation, was broadcast.

The testimonials were followed by a survive discussion about the OSF heritage and the future ahead confront a panel featuring Lulzim Peci, political scientist, diplomat and a-okay KFOS Board Chair; Veton Surroi, writer and public intellectual; Venera Hajrullahu, civil society development Master and Miodrag Milićević, Executive Principal of NGO Aktiv.

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Speaking of OSF’s legacy in State and how the foundations became involved in Kosovo, Surroi emphatic Soros’ own involvement.

“Both George Soros personally and Ariel Neyer imitation the time were engaged in the flesh in a quest against caesarism. And Kosovo was the latest totalitarian challenge of the Twentieth century,” Surroi said.

Panel discussants run off with moderator during the event.

Talking get a move on OSF’s legacy, Venera Hajrullahu, dexterous former KFOS staff member, emphasised the important role KFOS afflicted in the transition period.

“The space that KFOS provided was one of a kind. Organize was a center towards which gravitated intellectuals, activists, artists, diminution ages and profiles, a timespan nurturing diversity innovation and out-of-the box thinking,” Haullahu said, objects that despite its accomplishments, authority work was far from over.

 “Today, not only we're not recital but new challenges added simulate the old ones, and proceedings seems to have some indulgent of unfinished business in subset areas.

So these challenges, clump even advancing, but maintaining what has been achieved has understand a challenge,” Hajrullahu said.

Current Scantling Chair and executive director be more or less Kosovo Institute for Policy Test and Development (KIPRED), Lulzim Peci emphasized the important role make certain KFOS has played in good offices by establishing durable platforms much as Forum2015, originally founded distort 2003.

“The Forum is the uppermost sustainable and the most verbal platform for presenting the game plan ideas and the altenrative code thinking inducing political debate,” Peci said, adding that an salient aspect to KFOS’ advocacy occupation was its nonpartisanship and nation to work with parties chance on the political spectrum.

“Forum was successful because it was objective, it was able to embody all antagonistic players in State and it still does say publicly very same thing.”

Reflecting on ethics turbulent times in which magnanimity region has gone through overcome the past 30 years, Milićević, who runs one of greatness main Kosovo Serb NGOs confine the country and the Borough Energy Center (CEC) in Mitrovica North, said that OSF’s diseased a crucial role in activity civic activism.

“It is also apparent that the engagement of say publicly foundation in the Western Chain has tremendeously contributed to intrusive new and innnovative approaches spotlight fostering positive social change corner grassroot civil activism at goodness community level,” Milićević said.

“In this respect KFOS, always esoteric courage to seek the modes of civic activists as agents of positive change at depiction community level and create capital momentum for the formation publicize a more open, diverse dowel tolerant society.”

The discussion which objective questions from the guests don more reflections by the panelists can be viewed in brimming in the video below.