US Embassy honours People in Need’s Šimon Pánek with Alice Masaryk Prize

The US Embassy in Prague has honoured Šimon Pánek, a Velvet Revolution student leader and founder of People in Need, one of the largest humanitarian aid NGOs in the region.

Pánek was presented with the Alice Garrigue Masaryk Prize on International Human Rights Day. The distinction, named after the American-born wife of the first Czechoslovak president, is awarded to personalities for their work in that area.

People in Need (Člověk v tísni) is an internationally recognized Czech humanitarian organisation active in the fields of humanitarian aid, development and education.

Pánek founded the NGO in 1988 by organising a collection to aid victims of a devastating earthquake in Armenia.

Recently, Russia’s Ministry of Justice declared the Czech NGO “undesirable”, effectively banning it from operating in that country.