Open Society Institute in Croatia Closes Shop
 

Tomislav Domes

02 June 2006

The Open Society Institute Croatia announced, in a public release of Wednesday that it concluded its 14-year work in Croatia on May 31.

OSI Croatia was established in 1992, as support to the democratic development of Croatian Society. After the initial phase during which it concentrated on providing humanitarian assistance to the country at war, the Institute donated more than 55 million US Dollars as support for numerous initiative in the fields of education, media, art, culture, public health, law and economy, and greatly contributed to emergence and development of civil society in Croatia.

During the 1990s, OSI Croatia often worked in an environment that was not very inclined towards it, and contributed actively to the criticism of dominant political and social models, presenting an alternative to the authoritarian and nationalist beliefs and actions, thus helping the political changes and institutional reform.

After 14 years of systemic support to the democratization, in the context of Croatia’s progress towards the EU integration, the people at the Institute are convinced that the civil society in Croatia reached the level of self-sustainability, necessary to function in accordance with European democratic standards.

We would like to use this opportunity to express our gratitude to all our collaborators, members of the Managing Board and programme boards, as well as the employees of the OSI Croatia, the state, cultural and scientific institutions, the media, as well as numerous partners and users of our programmes for their activism, enthusiasm and dedicated work on democratization and development of Croatian society”, said OSI in a public statement.

http://see.oneworld.net/article/view/134055/1/