The program “Fostering Independent Publishing in Central Asia 3rd" is directed to these social groups in Central Asia that, through international cooperation, are prepared to overcome obstacles and to breakdown barriers and hostilities between people as well as to groups free of narrow minded nationalism, open to the development of democracy and oppose state control of freedom of thought and speech. The program is to serve these organizations for which freedom of speech means not only political freedom, but also an opportunity to communicate with people, who are currently separated by national borders. The program is also to facilitate reconciliation and cooperation among people.

An useful tool for reaching these goals is technical knowledge allowing ideas to be transferred. Participants will acquire this knowledge within the framework of the program.

The program, conducted in Warsaw by the Polish-Czech-Slovak Solidarity Foundation and financed by the National Endowment for Democracy, will train 21 representatives from independent organizations located in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. Every two-week training course will be primarily devoted to mastering desktop publishing skills. Its participants will return to their organizations fully capable of independently conducting publishing activity. In addition, 13 of selected organizations will receive computer equipment facilitating publishing tasks.

The selection of organizations will be made by the Program Council on the basis of the main goal of the entire program as well as the initial conceptual and organizational preparations of a given group to join the flow of information and ideas that could be facilitated by the applied technology. The Program Council will also select organizations from among those participating in the program that will receive technical assistance in the form of computer hardware.

Beneficiary organizations will be selected by the Program Council made of:

• Andrzej Halicki (MP, Polish Parliament) - Chairman,
• Bogumiła Berdychowska (Expert, The National Centre of Culture),
• Zbigniew Janas (former MP, The Polish – Czech – Slovak Solidarity Foundation),
• Jan Ołdakowski (MP, Polish Parliament),
• Maria Przełomiec (independent journalist, “East Studio” author),
• Agnieszka Romaszewska - Guzy (Director, TVP Polonia),
• Bartosz Węglarczyk (editor, the daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza).

The Program Council will take also a supervisory task over the program implementation

All the details regarding the program and application forms. (RTF version, PDF version)