Overview:

The Committee of Good Will was founded in the beginning of 1990 by Olga Havel (1933 – 1996), the  first wife of Václav Havel, the President of the Czech Republic, in the tradition of the Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Persecuted and Charta 77. The mission of the Committee of Good Will – Olga Havel Foundation (OHF) is to help people who, because of their poor health or social status, find it difficult to integrate into society or cannot care for themselves without other people’s assistance.

 

History:

The Committee was registered by the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic on 12 April 1990. The Committee’s mission was to appeal to moral conscience of a society and to draw attention to shortcomings in the social policy of the state and in the work of social, healthcare, educational and other institutions. Furthermore it decided to provide, according to its possibilities, organisational and financial assistance in those specific cases where no other organisation or facility could do so. And finally to support and nurture emerging humanitarian projects.

On 23 September 1992, the Olga Havel Foundation was registered. Since then, the organisation uses the compound name Committee of Good Will – Olga  Havel Foundation. As its founder, Olga Havel made sure that all applications were professionally evaluated, that donations were properly used, that assistance was provided promptly, and that the Foundation nurtured its contacts with both donors and beneficiaries. These principles are followed by the Foundation up to this day. 

In accordance with Act No. 227/1997 on foundations and endowment funds, the Foundation was registered in the Foundation Register administered by the Municipal Court in Prague, section N, ile 69, dated 14 December 1998.