President of the Psychopedagogical Society and a councillor on the Bolesławiec City Council Dawid Karol Kołodziej was shortlisted as a finalist for the educational Jan Karski Eagle Award. Over the years, the nominees and laureates have included such prominent figures as: Dominika Kulczyk, Paweł Abramowicz, Lech Wałęsa and Stanisław Dziwisz.
– Once a year, Personalities of the Year are nominated for social activism – says Dawid Kołodziej. – I was shortlisted for the award for promoting mental health during the pandemic. This recognition is for the preventive programmes created at the Psychopedagogical Society, which showed people how to care for their mental health during lockdown, and for the helpline launched during the first period of the pandemic – the president reports.
The Psychopedagogical Society is an association of people engaged in local community affairs who participate in academic activities in the fields of pedagogy, psychology, psychiatry, dietetics, civic education and broadly understood human development.
The Jan Karski Eagle Award was established on 5 May 2000 by Prof. Jan Karski (1914–2000), wartime courier for the Polish Government in exile, witness to the Holocaust and Righteous Among the Nations. Jan Karski expressed the wish that the award should go to people who “are capable of becoming genuinely concerned about Poland” and to those who, “although not Polish, wish Poland well”. The award is honorary and carries no financial remuneration, because, as its originator argued, “dignity cannot be measured in money”. It is symbolised by a statue of an eagle, whose design was approved by Jan Karski.