I believe that a person’s life can change abruptly after a) reading a good book, b) falling in love, c) attending an event. Subsections A and B are up for discussion, subsection C not so much 😜

Events I have in mind include: travel, music festivals, sporting events, cultural events, volunteering. And conferences and workshops. Here I will point out – NOT in online form. After all, life can be simply summarized as a collection of events. That is why I treat event-management a bit like creating another chapter of someone’s life. If the event is really good, one might turn another page & separate everything “before” with a thick line. Some may get to know a new way of thinking and acting, receive answers and solutions that can be put into practice.

The combination of travel and conference is a combo that takes time, energy, also funds. If all goes well, one can be sure that the participants will stay in touch with the organizer and their activities for years to come – if not forever. I believe that even the best marketing campaign will not have such an effect.

I’ve recently returned from Liberty International World Conference 2021 in Medellín, Colombia. I already understand what all the hype was about for a whole year of preparation. As the one responsible for speakers’ coordination, at times instead of a vision of a great trip, all I saw was a stack of emails to deal with. It’s almost like I had got blinders on. If I hadn’t gone, they would probably still be hanging from my eyelids.

If you can – go. We offer full scholarships and cost coverage for young people – please take advantage of that. If you are fond of freedom and free-market ideas – do everything to get there. I’ll tell you why.

When a group of people gather in one place on the other side of the world to cultivate ideas of freedom, magic happens. Real discussion, learning the stories of activists, scientists, refugees from totalitarian regimes – walking testimonies in pursuit of freedom. That’s why we treat the annual conferences at Liberty International as the icing on the cake – the culmination of a year’s worth of work and networking that bears fruit on the ground.

I wouldn’t know anything about the situation in Venezuela if I hadn’t heard about it from people who crossed the border by a footbridge over the water (sic!) and risked their lives to tell us about it. I would know too little about Colombia’s civil war if I had not walked the streets of Comuna 13 in Medellín. I would not have learned about the challenges facing South America and the threats to individual and economic freedom if I had not chosen to go there.

The question in my mind is: but why do you even care? What do Europeans have to gain from this? Isn’t it better to focus on your own backyard?

Better. However, learning from both the mistakes and successes of other countries, and networking with people who have contributed to that success is one way. Maybe not the most obvious one, but the most engaging and giving amazing results. After the conference we exchange opportunities and knowledge online, follow up and support each other’s development. We are not alone in this struggle.

The same young people from South America will learn more about the freedom situation in Eastern Europe next year. I happen to have the honor of being the lead manager of next year’s Liberty International Conference in Lviv, Ukraine. We will make sure that each of them will come back aware – just as I am now.

Thank you for your trust Jacek Spendel and the entire LI Board. We have a year full of preparations ahead of us. It will include other fantastic projects, about which you will probably still hear from me here.

I’m inserting photos for one purpose. On most of them I’m with other liberty ladies, whose presence gave me a lot of inspiration and practical knowledge. Poland suffers from a lack of female representation in the freedom movement. And I as a woman-individual, woman-citizen, woman-partner, woman-leader have never felt more fulfilled than now. I’m certain it happened as a result of studying & deepening of freedom thought. My observation is that plenty of women are simply missing out on this knowledge, being too caught up in the cultural and political war storm. I want to change that as well, step by step 😉