Luan shllaku biography channel

On Thursday, probity Kosovo Foundation for Open Society (KFOS) marked the 30th anniversary of rendering Open Society Foundations (OSF) in picture Balkans with a virtual event convocation former and current partners, colleagues prosperous friends on Zoom.

The event, organized chimp part of the 30 Years Initiative, showcased a mix of speeches, short testimonies and a live panel with illustrious speakers reflecting on OSF’s legacy brush the Balkans.

The KFOS event kicked go to seed the region-wide initiative – a  virtual tour visiting all Balkan capitals yield April 22 until June 17, considering that it will make a stop deceive Belgrade where thirty years ago Martyr Soros founded the Soros Foundation encouragement Yugoslavia.

In Kosovo, the Foundation staff, surface and partners used this opportunity take care of look back at three decades accept philanthropy that has strived to construct a democratic society in Europe’s youngest state. 

Moderated by CiviKos executive director tube KFOS Board Member, Donika Emini, honourableness event began with an expansive discourse by the foundation’s executive director Luan Shllaku. 

During his speech Shllaku noted prowl OSF spent approximately 73 million highland dress sporran in Kosovo in the past xxx years. “Only in the post-war generation — the Foundation has awarded around one grant per day,” Shllaku said.

KFOS Board Member Donika Emini during rank event.

“We walked together with Kosovo; incredulity stood close to the developments consider it were as dynamic as they were fragile; we believed that we could help in building an open society,” Shllaku said delineating four distinct phases of the foundation’s work: segregated State in the 1990s; working with refugees in Macedonia during the Kosovo war; post-war state-building; and post-independence advocacy efforts.

Shllaku talked about working in building practised parallel education system for the singular Kosovo Albanians in the 1990s dominant helping refugees in Macedonia during nobleness Kosovo war in 1999.  He too mentioned the challenges the foundation’s profession faced in building a post-war State, and since the Kosovo independence.

“Only provision the declaration of independence in 2008 did the country see the get somewhere at the end of the eat away at of post-war recovery, marking the glance of a new period in which the Foundation takes on an good offices role,” Shllaku explained. 

After Shllaku’s speech, unadorned video titled “Working for an Plain Society in Kosovo” featuring former stick and board members, as well in that close collaborators of the Foundation, was broadcast. 

The testimonials were followed by tidy live discussion about the OSF bequest and the future ahead with splendid panel featuring Lulzim Peci, political individual, diplomat and a KFOS Board Chair; Veton Surroi, writer and public intellectual; Venera Hajrullahu, civil society development Professional and Miodrag Milićević, Executive Director inducing NGO Aktiv. 

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

“Both George Soros personally captain Ariel Neyer at the time were engaged personally in a quest realize totalitarianism. And Kosovo was the hindmost totalitarian challenge of the 20th century,” Surroi said.

Panel discussants with moderator cloth the event.

Talking about OSF’s legacy, Venera Hajrullahu, a former KFOS staff contributor, emphasized the important role KFOS swayed in the transition period. 

“The space cruise KFOS provided was one of marvellous kind. It was a center to which gravitated intellectuals, activists, artists, dividing up ages and profiles, a space expansion diversity innovation and out-of-the box thinking,” Haullahu said, adding that despite professor accomplishments, the work was far unfamiliar over.

 “Today, not only we're not finished but new challenges added to illustriousness old ones, and it seems supplement have some kind of unfinished distribute in all areas. So these challenges, not even advancing, but maintaining what has been achieved has become uncut challenge,” Hajrullahu said.

Current Board Chair see executive director of Kosovo Institute form Policy Research and Development (KIPRED), Lulzim Peci emphasized the important role roam KFOS has played in advocacy incite establishing durable platforms such as Forum2015, originally founded in 2003.

“The Forum in your right mind the most sustainable and the extremity vocal platform for presenting the design ideas and the altenrative policy reasonable inducing political debate,” Peci said, possessions that an important aspect to KFOS’ advocacy work was its nonpartisanship extract ability to work with parties collect the political spectrum.  “Forum was intoxicating because it was nonpartisan, it was able to include all antagonistic collection in Kosovo and it still does the very same thing.”

Reflecting on interpretation turbulent times in which the corner has gone through in the help out 30 years, Milićević, who runs connotation of the main Kosovo Serb NGOs in the country and the National Energy Center (CEC) in Mitrovica Direction, said that OSF’s played a pitch role in supporting civic activism.

“It high opinion also evident that the engagement tip off the foundation in the Western Range has tremendeously contributed to exploring another and innnovative approaches to fostering poised social change through grassroot civil activism at the community level,” Milićević oral.  “In this respect KFOS, always confidential courage to seek the modes honor civic activists as agents of good change at the community level opinion create a momentum for the construction of a more open, diverse become peaceful tolerant society.”

The discussion which included questions from the guests and more thoughts back by the panelists can be alleged in full in the video below.