News
Mythbuster: Questions and answers about Ökotárs Foundation
Over the past months, the Hungarian government and pro-government media has published numerous malicious rumors viewing Ökotárs, its partners and the activities of the EEA/Norwegian NGO Fund in a bad light. These rumors include heavy, sometime contradictory accusations against us and even these are constantly changing: it started out with the claim that we are indirectly supporting parties from the Fund. It turned out that this is not true. Than it continued with that we support party-related NGOs. It turned out that this is not true either. It continued that we are pseudo-civil. This is not true either, of course. And now they say that our operation is irregular. We will refute this as well.
Results of the last call
Budapest, 27 February 2015 - The assessment of applications submitted for the third and last call of the NGO Fund has finished. With the award decision of the operator foundation's Approval Board the funds have been almost fully allocated.
Court decision says that house search against Ökotárs was illegal
On September 8, last year officers of the National Bureu of Investigation made house searches in the offices of Ökotárs Foundation and his partners and at some of the foundation's colleagues. Everyone who was involved in the searches - the Ökotárs Foundation, Veronika Móra director and Zsuzsa Foltányi board member - made complaints against the raids. The Central District Court of Buda upheld the complaint in its decision dated 23rd of January. The decision says that the search and seizure was illegal as suspicion of offense has not been established.
Submission of the third call's second phase is closed
19th of January 2015 the online applications system to submit second phase medium and micro project concepts in the third call of the EEA/Norway NGO Fund was closed at 6 pm as announced. Until the deadline 241 (138 micro and 103 medium) applications were submitted.
Blogger workshops for hate-free communication
On December 12 and January 9 nearly 50 bloggers and citizens learned bout the main tools and major concerns of blogging at our workshop. The participants discussed a number of communication and conflict resolution issues we all face when we share facts or opinions on the net and when we want to involve others in hate-free and equal conversations.
Medium and micro project proposals – first phase results announced - Autumn 2014
Selection Committees of the 7 thematic areas of the NGO Fund in Hungary convened between 21 and 27 November, 2014 to make decisions about the first phase applications (project concepts) submitted to the call that was closed on the 15th of October. Of the high number of 978 applications received 948 passed the formal and administrative screening and now 280 will have the opportunity to submit their detailed project plans in the second phase of the application process.
You can be ’On the spot!’ Reporters wanted!
NEW CALL FOR PROPOSAL - The Hungarian Environmental Partnership Foundation - Ökotárs Alapítvány (HEPF) in cooperation with Autonomia Foundation, Foundation for Development of Democratic Rights (DEMNET) and the Carpathian Foundation-Hungary hereby announces a call for applications in the framework of the NGO Fund of the EEA/Norwegian Financial Mechanism for Hungarian NGOs to support study trips of young people to Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland (the donor countries).
Message to the Government Control Office (KEHI)
The foundations operating the EEA/Norwegian NGO Fund have been astonished by the fact that the Government's Control Office (abbreviated as KEHI) published a document called "Report" that allegedly closes the unauthorized investigations against the foundations without previously sending it to the investigated organizations. KEHI published the document at his own website and sent it to some selected journalists. KEHI's unfair process has violated the Government Decree regulating its own operation when it has not sent the full draft documentation and annexes of the audit report to those concerned (i.e. the foundations themselves) for commenting. According to KEHI these documents would support all accusations published through the media. Therefore the audited foundations strongly demand that KEHI should provide them these documents directly.
How the KEHI abuses its official powers
Budapest, 20 October 2014 - In the interest of providing the public with credible information regarding ongoing events, the foundations managing the Norway NGO Fund find it important to express their opinion on the defamation campaign conducted against them for almost six months now, and to publish said opinion along with supporting documents. In the first part, you can read about the proceedings of the Government Control Office (Kormányzati Ellenőrzési Hivatal, abbreviated as KEHI in Hungarian).
Submission of the third call is closed
15th of October 2014 the online applications system to submit first phase medium and micro project concepts in the third call of the EEA/Norway NGO Fund was closed at 6 pm as announced. Until the deadline 978 (493 micro and 485 medium) finalized applications were submitted. Based on the experiences of the previous calls this is ten times more than what can be supported from the NGO Fund.