Press releases

Plenty of cheer in the OKD Foundation Tent at Colours of Ostrava

Ostrava (15 July 2010) – The OKD Foundation Tent at the Colours of Ostrava festival, located near the OKD Czech Stage on the Black Meadow (Černá louka), will this year offer an unconventional programme. Each day, the tent will be occupied by a different nonprofit organisation supported by the OKD Foundation. So who can we expect?

Enthusiasts from the Saint Alexander Charity will present their work on Friday. In Ostrava-Kunčičky, the charity restored a building of a closed-down mine and in the space thus acquired commissioned a line for processing plastic waste, as well as joinery and textile workshops, providing jobs for people with disabilities. Visitors to the festival will have an opportunity to purchase skilfully handmade products that have resulted from the endeavour. They will be available in the OKD Foundation Tent with the money raised from sales going to this valuable cause.

The tent has been booked by NGO Adra for Saturday. It would be hard if not impossible to find someone who does not know of the activities pursued by Adra during the recent and previous floods. However, Adra’s voluntary cause is just as notable: thanks to the organisation, several hundred people help out in retirement homes, entertain kids who live in children’s homes and assist people confined to hospital beds. “You will be able to learn more at the Colours of Ostrava. We will have photos from our volunteers’ work in the OKD Foundation Tent, and you will be able to join us if you wish to,” said Dagmar Hoferková, head of the Ostrava branch of Adra.

Sunday will probably be the most action-packed day at the tent when it is taken over by the Iniciativa Dokořán (Initiative Wide Open). The initiative has become very well-known because of the festival of the same name held in Karviná on the Czech-Polish border; however, its activities are much broader. “We have prepared a competition for Colours of Ostrava visitors, in which people will entertain themselves as well as their friends, and as a bonus will have a chance to win tickets to the Dokořán festival, held on the second weekend in August,” said Lucie Rakowská from Iniciativa Dokořán.

As many as eight other nonprofit organisations will make their appearance at the Colours of Ostrava festival on Friday afternoon when they take to the OKD Czech Stage to receive cheques from Petra Mašínová, the Chair of the OKD Foundation Managing Board, made out to the amounts which the foundation is to credit to their bank accounts.

“All organisations which we support deserve at least this minute in the spotlight, but if we were to include them all there would be no place left for the festivalgoers. Therefore we have chosen rather unconventional selection criteria: the invitations to the cheque-giving ceremony have gone to those organisations that have received the highest and lowest amounts from the individual grant programmes,” OKD Foundation Director Blanka Týřová explained.

Vladislav Sobol

OKD Foundation spokesperson

Telephone:      596 262 293
Mobile:             725 595 417
E-mail:              vladislav.sobol@okd.cz