Liberté! Foundation

Fundacja Liberté! (Liberté! Foundation) is a think tank and a civil society organization founded in 2007 in Lodz, Poland. The entity is registered in the National Court Register (KRS) as a foundation. The main focus of the Foundation’s activities is publishing expert, ideological, socio-political Liberté! magazine – an e-monthly magazine and an online webportal at www.liberte.pl.

Our mission is to promote civic engagement for community, an open society, liberal economic ideas, European integration, and to organize a social movement around these ideas in Poland.

The Foundation’s main objective is to create in Poland a viable liberal alternative to the mainstream populists attitudes in the form of a comprehensive and interdisciplinary institution capable of influencing Polish citizens in an efficient way in a bid to bring about a liberal change in the country and the society as a whole.

The Foundation is a member of expert organizations: the 4liberty.eu network, the Atlas network, and the European Liberal Forum (ELF).

The Foundation has a diversified funding base. The main sources of funding include: a) grants (the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, the City of Lodz Office, the Atlas Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, European Liberty Forum, among others); b) private sponsorship (Microsoft, Orange, Bosch, Google, Kulczyk Investments, among others); c) crowdfunding and individual donations; d) own business activity (a cafe, books sales, among others).

Five people are employed as full-time professional staff, several people cooperate with the Foundation under temporary-employment contracts, ten people are employed as technical staff in the Foundation’s cultural center in Lodz (6. Dzielnica). Throughout the year, the Foudnation cooperates with several volunteers and/or interns. Key staff members include: Błażej Lenkowski, Leszek Jażdżewski, Olga Łabendowicz, Marcin Malecki, Joanna Głodek. Supporting staff members: Magdalena M. Baran, Magda Melnyk.

Projects and Activities

Liberté! e-monthly

Since 2007, Liberté! used to be a quarterly magazine in print, which, in 2018, was transformed into an e-monthly.

Our credo is to reflect on the reality in a critical manner, remain skeptical of all ideologies, take the world around us and ourselves with caution and a bit of irony, to treat freedom of an individual as the key principle guiding the politics, focusing on both European and global perspective for Poland, to bravely promote the seemingly unpopular ideas that we believe to be important, at the same time remaining open-minded towards other points of view, to be open for a debate, exchanging reasonable arguments.

Our Editorial Team consist of journalists and contributors from around Poland.

Editor-in-Chief: Leszek Jażdżewski

Deputy Editor-in-Chief: Magdalena M. Baran

Translations and International Cooperation: Olga Łabendowicz

Social Media and Office Coordination: Joanna Głodek

Liberte.pl

The  liberte.pl is an opinion webportal featuring ongoing publication of articles from the areas of society, politics, culture, economics, among others. The mission and the main premise of the web portal are in line with that of the e-monthly.

Find out more: www.liberte.pl

Freedom Games (since 2014, ongoing)

Freedom Games are a meeting of people curious about the world and hungry for new ideas. A discussion about the key challenges the Western societies must face in the 21st century. Freedom Games are a unique interdisciplinary forum held in Poland, the aim of which is to offer a creative space for individuals from the sectors of culture, business, and public affairs, among others.

Freedom Games are a leading intellectual and educational event in Poland. We hosted renowned speakers from the United States, Russia, China, France, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and United Kingdom, among others. The Organizer has proved that within four years it was possible to gather in Łódź outstanding intellectuals, representatives of culture and public life from around the globe – including lecturers from the Universities of Cambridge,

Freedom Games are a meeting of people curious about the world and hungry for new ideas. A discussion about the key challenges the Western societies must face in the 21st century. Freedom Games are a unique interdisciplinary forum held annually in Lodz, Poland, and online (since 2020), the aim of which is to offer a creative space for individuals from the sectors of culture, business, and public affairs, among others.

Freedom Games are a leading intellectual and educational event in Poland. We hosted renowned speakers from the United States, Russia, China, France, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and United Kingdom, among others. The Organizer has proved that within four years it was possible to gather in Lodz outstanding intellectuals, representatives of culture and public life from around the globe – including lecturers from the Universities of Cambridge, Berkeley, Lodz, and Paris, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lodz University of Technology, a former prime minister of Russia, dissidents, writers, poets, and the leaders of influential non-governmental organizations such as National Endowment for Democracy or European Liberal Forum.

The partners of the event included: Open Society Foundations, Atlas Foundation, Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, the City of Lodz Office, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Orange, among others.

Among hundreds of speakers who took part in Freedom Games we may find: Robert Cooper, Adam Michnik, Agnieszka Holland, Maria Peszek, Marek Belka, Leszek Balcerowicz, Peter Gloor, Brendan Simms, Angana Chatterji, Andrzej Stasiuk, Marcin Świetlicki, Liao Ywiu, Robert Biedroń, Borys Budka, Kamila Gasiuk-Pihowicz, Maria Asenius, Karim Jebari, Jacek Dukaj, Sławomir Lachowski, Mariusz Szczygieł, Nilüfer Göle, Oksana Zabuzhko, Carl Gershman, Adam Bodnar, Jan-Werner Mueller, and Viktor Eerofyev, among others.

The eight edition (2021) of the forum titled “New Social Contract” was made possible thanks to the participation of leaders and renowned thinkers who engaged in a debate on the most important challenges that local and global communities must face in the age of the coronavirus pandemics.

During 2.5 days and with 75 sessions organized, the event gave a platform to 280 speakers from Poland and abroad – with activists, NGO representatives, European Commissioners, MEPs, MPs, politicians, scholars, authors, high-profile filmmakers, journalists, economists, among others, enabling them to share with audiences online their insights and views on the most pressing areas affected by the ongoing crisis – such as economy, freedom, human rights, politics, culture, education, etc.

Once again, Freedom Games became an intellectually stimulating cultural event with an educational value. Participants had a unique opportunity to meet in Lodz and online with leading intellectuals, representatives of culture, academia, and public life from around the globe. An ambitious program was combined with openness and availability to each and every participant – in person and online. The edition gathered over 2,100,000 online viewers and 1,750 in-person attendees.

Find out more: www.igrzyskawolnosci.pl/en

 

6. Dzielnica

A small art gallery and a cultural club in the centre of Lodz. A place of civic debates, conferences, artistic events, exhibitions, and cosy concerts. Open: Tuesday-Sunday, from 17:00 to the last customer. Address: 102 Piotrkowska St., 90-004 Lodz, Poland.

Find out more: szostadzielnica.pl

4liberty.eu Network

 

The Foundation coordinates the project on behalf of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom. The 4liberty.eu network is a group of 17 think tanks from CEE (including members from Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, and Germany). The goals of the network include: to make the Central European perspective accessible to international audience, to be a reliable source of information on regional issues, and the voice of the region.

The 4liberty.eu website has been designed to become a platform where experts and intellectuals representing liberal environment from Central and Eastern Europe can share their opinions and ideas. Our website contributors are experts, intellectuals, and researchers from CEE. We publish high quality analyses, polemics, and articles exclusively in English, building bridges between nations to help in better understanding between experts from particular countries.

As part of our activities we publish the 4liberty.eu Review half-yearly. The magazine is devoted to discussing various political, social, and economic issues from a liberal CEE perspective. Dr Olga Łabendowicz is the Editor-in-Chief of the publication.

Find out more: www.4liberty.eu

See all issues of the 4liberty.eu Review: http://4liberty.eu/category/review/ 

 

Nauka Obywatela (Citizen’s Education) (since 2019, ongoing)

Nauka Obywatela is a project focused on creating a free and open platform for secondary school teachers of civics, entrepreneurship, and ethics with content for teaching their pupils about the key issues of the modern world in an interdisciplinary and innovative manner.

As part of the project, online workshops for teachers are conducted, providing them with know-how on best ways of utilizing the available materials. The main objective of the project is an attempt to modernize teaching in Polish schools and raising responsible and open-minded citizens. The project is conducted in cooperation with the Lithuanian Free Market Institute as part of the Erasmus+ program. It is also supported by the Atlas Network.

The Foundation is currently working on a continuation of the project (Citizen to Be) as part of Erasmus+ in cooperation with the LFMI. The project shall be aimed at primary schools in Poland.

Find out more: www.naukaobywatela.pl/szkoly-srednie

Books (ongoing)

The Foundation operates partly as a publishing house – we publish our own original books devoted to the topics that are close to our heart and follow our credo. So far, we released two books penned by Marek Migalski – Naród Urojony (2017), Budowanie narodu. Przypadek Polski w latach 2015-2017 (2018), and Znaczenie wojny. Pytając o wojnę sprawiedliwą (2018) by Magdalena M. Baran.

We also published: Antropocen dla początkujących: Klimat, środowisko, pandemie w epoce człowieka (Anthropocene for Beginners: Climate, Environment, Pandemics in the Age of Man) by Dawid Juraszek (Biblioteka Liberte!, 2020), Nieludzki ustrój (Unhuman Regime) by Marek Migalski (Biblioteka Liberte!, 2020), Kościół w czasach dobrej zmiany (The Church in the Times of the Good Change; Biblioteka Liberte!, 2021) by Jarosław Makowski, and Był sobie kraj. Rozmowy o Polsce” (There Once Was a Country. Conversations about Poland) by Magdalena M. Baran (June 2021).

The Foundation also publishes translations: How Democracies Die (2018), written by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt of Harvard University, Polski kryzys konstytucyjny (Poland’s Constitutional Breakdown; Biblioteka Liberte!, 2020) by Professor Wojciech Sadurski, an eminent Polish constitutional scholar, a licensed Polish translation.

6. Dzielnica

A small art gallery and a cultural club in the centre of Lodz. A place of civic debates, conferences, artistic events, exhibitions, and cosy concerts. Address: 102 Piotrkowska St., 90-004 Lodz, Poland.

Find out more: www.szostadzielnica.pl

LATO Festival (since 2020, ongoing)

LATO is a special weekend cultural and ideological event series organized in the 6. Dzielnica club held annually in Lodz, Poland. It involves meetings, workshops, and cultural activities taking place at the meeting point of various fields of art – from literature, film, and performance to music and visual arts, held in June-July 2020.

The first edition of the Festival, held in the summer of 2020, involved participation of representatives of contemporary art and culture and was organized as part of the summer stage of the 6. Dzielnica club. For five weekends the venue became the scenery for an interdisciplinary performance, an egalitarian, and, at the same time, creative platform for the exchange of ideas and dialogue.

Civic Campaigns

The team of the Foundation conducts and supports a number of campaigns dealing with social and political issues in Poland, e.g. Open Pension Funds (OFE) support campaign, “Say NO to Financing the Temple of Divine Providence Construction from Our Taxes”, “YES to Civil Partnership” or the “Secular School” campaigns.

Voter-Turnout Campaign before the Second Round of the 2020 Presidential Election in Poland (2020)

In the eve of the second round of the 2020 presidential election (held in Poland on June 12), we developed a online, social, and traditional media campaign promoting voter turnout – especially among the youth. The campaign was based on producing a short videoclip (in cooperation with the MotionPikczer studio) titled Nie chcę tańczyć, jak mi zagrają (I Do Not Want to Dance to Somebody Else’s Tune), which became wildly popular, gathering in total 583.5K Views on Facebook and 85,951 views on YouTube. It was also broadcasted by major private TV stations (e.g. TVN).

The rationale behind the campaign was to mobilize the youth to vote in order to raise awareness of the importance of exercising one’s right to vote in the democratic system – especially in light of the recent developments in Poland. This experience has proven that the Foundation is capable of creating an effective campaign tool and the gained expertise shall help improve any future endeavors.

The videoclip is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01HNRFq_Zew

Presence in Media and at the Key Intellectual Events in Poland

The Foundation is also actively involved in cooperation with the Economic Forum in Krynica and the European Forum for New Ideas. Members of the Foundation and people associated with our organization are often invited as speakers to numerous conferences – eg. Lodz Economic Forum.

We ensure our constant presence in the Polish mass media (Gazeta Wyborcza, Rzeczpospolita, Polityka, TVN 24, Polsat News, Tok FM, TVP Info, Polskie Radio, TV Republika) as journalists or commentators.

Board of the Foundation

Błażej Lenkowski
President of the Board

Leszek Jażdżewski
Vice-President of the Board

Foundation’s Team

Błażej Lenkowski
Managing Director of the Foundation, Freedom Games Coordinator

Leszek Jażdżewski
Editor-in-Chief of LIBERTÉ!, Strategic Contacts Coordinator

Olga Łabendowicz
Editor-in-Chief of 4liberty.eu Review, International Relations Coordinator

Marcin Malecki
6. Dzielnica Coordinator, Cultural Projects Coordinator

Magda Melnyk
Social Media Coordinator

Joanna Kwiatkowska
Office Coordinator

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