About the Prague Civil Society Centre
What
The Prague Civil Society Centre supports and empowers democratic changemakers and independent media. We specialise in closed and contested contexts and strive to support those who are pushing for more free, transparent, and accountable societies.
Where
We operate in 18 countries across Central/Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. By working in these regions, we ensure that local changemakers have access to the support they need to address the challenges they face.
How
Grants, events, workshops, and fellowships. Our grants are designed to be as flexible and burden free as possible whilst our events, workshops, and networking are tailored to specific needs as they emerge. We aim to be a one-stop shop that is as relevant and useful as possible to our partners on the ground.

Our vision
Free and democratic societies
The Prague Civil Society Centre believes that everyone has the right to live in freedom and dignity. People should be able to live and participate in societies that are accountable to their populations and respect democratic principles.
Our mission
Support and empower democratic changemakers and media
Our mission is to ensure civil society and independent media are able to do their work no matter the political situation and pressure they face. The Prague Civil Society Centre is designed to work where others can’t and to ensure brave individuals, groups, and organisations are able to receive the support they need, not the support others think they need. Be it funding, connections, skills, or training, our mission is to make sure our partners are as best equipped as possible to advance their causes.

Where we work
The Prague Civil Society Centre works in 18 countries across Central/Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia

Who we work with
Who we work with
Civil society
Civil society is in our name and is at the heart of what we do. Our definition of civil society is deliberately broad and our partners reflect this. We like to refer to the people we work with as changemakers because working for some kind of positive change rooted in democratic values is a uniting theme across our partners.
NGOs and non-profits
We support a wide range of NGOs that work on a myriad of different issues. From defending and advancing human rights, legal aid groups and environmental campaigners to anti-corruption and good governance initiatives, we are proud to support NGOs large and small as they strive to make their societies and countries more open, accountable, and democratic.
Grassroot groups and movements
We are able to work with various initiatives, non-violent movements and individuals. These can be new, fledgling groups or established networks – we just want to make sure they have access to the support or connections they need to make the next step.
Advocacy initiatives
We work with a number of initiatives, particularly in Ukraine, to make sure voices from the region we work are heard in the West. We strive to provide a platform to groups and individuals that are dedicated to making their societies more open, democratic, and free.
Artists and filmmakers
Creatives are key to making sense of the struggles that surround us, bear witness, and document changes as they occur. We are particularly interested to support the next generation of documentary filmmakers from the region we work.
Independent media
A vibrant and trusted independent media is the cornerstone of a democratic society and one of the biggest assets civil society can have, providing a platform to amplify their voices, reach new audiences, and broach topics never covered on state channels. Independent media is not only the most powerful antidote to disinformation but also provides a foundation for activism through investigations and reports into corruption, mismanagement, and abuses of power. We work with large brands that reach tens of millions of readers each month all the way to local Telegram channels.
Newsroom media
We are a significant donor to some of the largest media brands working in our region. With a focus on providing institutional (core) support with multi-annual frameworks, we aim to ensure media that count their readers and viewers in the tens of millions have access to funding that allows them to cover the costs of producing their journalism.
Investigative media
Strong investigative media are vital to holding power to account and documenting injustice. We’re proud to support the region’s leading investigators as they risk everything to uncover webs of corruption, sanctions evasion, and loophole exploitation.
Channels, influencers, and local media
Informal news networks, social media-based channels, and small local media are a vital part of the independent media ecosystem. Stories they break are often hugely important for local audiences and are important for feeding up the chain to larger outlets.
Activists and media in exile
A vibrant civil society and independent media are at the very foundation of open and democratic societies. The autocracies, kleptocracies, and backsliding democracies that mark the countries we work in are so quick to throttle and liquidate their media and civil society for one simple reason: they work. These efforts have led to a number of media and civil society groups moving to exile. We are open to supporting these initiatives as long as the impact of the work remains inside the countries they moved from.
Our funding
Independent
funding
decisions
We are trusted by the American, British, Swedish, Czech, and Finnish governments, the European Commission, the Oak Foundation, and the King Baudouin Foundation to provide funding to civil society and independent media in the countries and regions we work.
Without their support, we would not be able to do what we do. However, the decision on who we support and where we support them remains a decision of the Prague Centre. We make sure those we consider critical to the future and freedom of the countries we work get the support and solidarity they require.
Our people
Leadership
The Prague Civil Society Centre senior leadership team consists of six directors with extensive experience working with civil society and independent media in Central/Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. They are supported by two senior advisors.
Board
The Prague Centre is governed by a Board of Trustees represented by leading figures of European civil society and media. The three founding organisations (People in Need, Human Rights House Foundation, and the Institute of Public Affairs) are represented by their leadership.
Rostislav Valvoda
Executive Director of the Prague Civil Society Centre
Full bio
Rostislav has over 15 years of experience working in human rights across Russia, Eastern Europe, and the Caucasus. He launched the Prague Civil Society Centre in 2015 while head of the East European programme at People in Need, where he also started programmes in Azerbaijan and the North Caucasus. He was also one of the founders of the EU-Russia Civil Society Forum.
Anthony Carn
Deputy Director & Finance Director
Full bio
Anthony joined the Centre in 2015 after almost a decade of working in international accounting. He trained at PwC as an external auditor and financial institutions consultant, before moving to internal audit at the investment banking division of Komerční banka (Société Générale group) and outsourcing department at Mazars.
Dáša van der Horst
Programme Director (Events & Exchanges)
Full bio
Dáša has more than 25 years of experience in international diplomacy and human rights. Before joining the Centre, she was the director of Organisational Development and Movement Building at Amnesty International. She has also worked as the Director of the Czech Centres in China; and in various management positions for the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Palestine, Israel, and Czechia.
Maria Aghajanyan
Programme Director (Grants)
Full bio
Maria has more than 15 years of hands-on experience in capacity development for human rights organisations, civil society, and independent media. She joined the Centre in 2017 as a Programme Officer in the Grants team, overseeing a portfolio of civil society and independent media partners operating in some of the most difficult environments in the region. Prior to joining the Centre, she worked for 12 years with the Open Society Foundations in Armenia, where she was responsible for grants to civil society and legal initiatives.
George Leech
Director of Outreach & Communications
Full bio
George heads up the Centre’s outreach and external communications. He has been with the Centre for over seven years in various communication and fundraising roles. Before joining the Centre, George worked at Human Rights Watch in Moscow, the International Crisis Group, and the OSCE in Warsaw and Copenhagen.
Tarik Jusić
Director of Central Europe Programme & Head of Research and Learning
Full bio
Tarik has over two decades of experience in media development, international media assistance, media research and advocacy, strategic communication, and academia. Apart from his role at the Prague Civil Society Centre, Tarik also teaches several courses on media, democratisation, and social change at the University of New York in Prague. He holds a PhD degree from the Institute for Media and Communication Studies at the University of Vienna.
Šimon Pánek
Chair of the Board & Executive Director of People in Need
Full bio
Šimon is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Czech NGO People in Need, the largest humanitarian, developmental, and human rights organisation in Central and Eastern Europe. He was one of the student leaders of the 1989 Velvet Revolution before serving as a foreign policy expert on the Balkans and human rights issues for president Václav Havel. He received the Czech Medal of Merit in 2002 and the European of the Year Award in 2003.
Maria Dahle
Deputy Chair of the Board & Executive Director of the Human Rights House Foundation
Full bio
Maria is the Executive Director of the Human Rights House Foundation, based in Oslo, Norway. She has helped launch ventures including the Human Rights House Network (Dugnad ’98), the Voice of Tibet radio station, and the annual Oslo film festival, ‘Human Rights Human Wrongs’. She was previously the Director of the Human Rights House Oslo, a journalist at the Norwegian business newspaper Finansavisen, and a theatre instructor at Nordland Fylkeskommune. She has an MSc Degree from the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration in Bergen.
Jacek Kucharczyk
President of the Institute of Public Affairs
Full bio
Jacek is the President of the Institute of Public Affairs, one of Poland’s leading think tanks. He was active in the underground student and publishing movement in the 1980s and co-founded the Policy Association for an Open Society. He has a PhD in sociology and was previously a fellow at the New School for Social Research in New York. He is an author and frequent commentator on European affairs and politics for Polish and international media.
Inna Pidluska
Deputy Executive Director of the International Renaissance Foundation
Full bio
Before joining the International Renaissance Foundation (IRF), a national foundation of the Open Society Foundations network in Ukraine, Inna served as executive director of the Yalta European Strategy. Inna has been a civil society activist since 1992, focusing on Ukraine’s democratic transition and various advocacy projects. She sat on the steering committee for the World Movement for Democracy from 2006 until 2012. Inna has also served as chair of the supervisory board at the Ukrainian Philanthropists Forum. She was educated at Kyiv State Linguistic University, the Institute of Journalism of Kyiv Taras Shevchenko University, and won a Chevening scholarship to study international relations at Keele University in the UK.
Giorgi Gogia
Associate Director for Europe and Central Asia Division at Human Rights Watch
Full bio
Giorgi Gogia is an expert on human rights issues in the South Caucasus and has written extensively on criminal justice reform, police brutality, freedom of expression and media freedoms, property rights, disability rights, labour rights, and international humanitarian law violations during armed conflicts. Before joining Human Rights Watch, Giorgi worked for the International Crisis Group as a senior analyst, researching and writing on protracted conflicts in the South Caucasus. A graduate of Central European University in Hungary, Giorgi is a PhD candidate in political science at Ilia State University in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Barbara von Ow-Freytag
Journalist & political scientist
Full bio
Barbara worked for many years as a foreign correspondent, editor, and analyst for various outlets, including Reuters, Radio Free Europe, and Süddeutsche Zeitung. She previously served as a consultant on Eastern Europe for the Bundestag Committee on European Affairs and as an advisor for the German government coordinator on inter-societal cooperation with Russia. Barbara has been engaged with the Prague Civil Society Centre since 2015, later working as an external advisor from 2017-2021.
Supervisory Board: Jacek Wojnarowski, Václav Hrabák