BIO

Jolanta Kwaśniewska

First Lady of the Republic of Poland from 1995 to 2005. Founder and President of the “Agreement Without Barriers” Foundation. Lawyer. Member of international organizations and honorary patron of initiatives with European and global reach.

She organized the international conference of First Ladies “Keep Children Smiling In The New Millennium”, which took place in Warsaw in 1999, to honor the 10th anniversary of the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Since 1997, she has been a member of the Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Partnership Foundation, focusing on young, exceptionally talented people entering adulthood.

In 1998, she became a member of the Committee des Sages, established by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, aiming to eliminate illegal production, trafficking, and use of drugs.

Until 2008, she was a member of the Honorary Council of the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC), which fights against sexual exploitation and child abductions.

From 2007 to 2016, Jolanta Kwaśniewska was a member of the Main Council of the Suzanne Mubarak Women’s International Peace Movement, promoting peace, supporting international cooperation, and ensuring that the voice of the youngest is heard.

In February 2008, she became a member of the Women Leaders’ Council, established during the Vienna Forum against Human Trafficking. The aim of the WLC is to coordinate actions globally, create new partnerships, and work to reduce the stigma of human trafficking victims.

Since April 2008, she has been the Patron of the European Cancer Patient Coalition (ECPC), which works for cancer patients across Europe.

In March 2010, Jolanta Kwaśniewska became a member of the European Advisory Council and the Patron of the European Institute of Women’s Health, which promotes gender equality in public health, scientific research, and social policy in Europe.

Jolanta Kwaśniewska is the co-founder of the Congress of Women, actively involved in organizing the first three Congresses.

As the chairwoman and honorary patron of the Polish branch of the international organization Vital Voices Global Partnership, she supports women in the name of the principle that “human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights”. She participates in a mentoring program for women from Poland and around the world.

She conducted training for women emerging from unemployment and image training, patronizing the Dress for Success Association in Poland, the largest American organization in the world helping disadvantaged women return to or enter the job market and achieve economic independence.

From 2000 to 2016, Jolanta Kwaśniewska implemented the “Butterfly Hospitals” program, aiming to replace the hospital’s white, associated with pain and illness, with colorful, fairy-tale elements. Over 600 butterfly hospitals were created.

The Jolanta and Aleksander Kwaśniewski Young Talent Assistance Fund operated alongside the Foundation, created on the conviction that in Poland, despite many institutions supporting the development of young talents, too many talented people are still lost irretrievably.

In 2000, with the participation of companies involved in the fight against cancer, the Foundation created an educational project called “You Can Beat Cancer”, aimed at raising awareness among women about the need for regular breast self-examination.

In 2001, the Foundation organized the “Rainbow Bridge” project, a summer camp for youth from 20 countries to promote tolerant attitudes through creating an atmosphere of agreement and cooperation among people from different nations. The continuation of the project was the “Tolerance Schools Club”, which aimed to teach tolerance through knowledge, understanding, and cooperation.

As part of the “Let’s Open the World to Children!” program, the Foundation organized trips to various parts of the world for children whose fathers died while performing their official duties. The Foundation organized over 78 foreign and dozens of domestic trips for over 3,000 children.

On June 3, 2005, Jolanta Kwaśniewska donated to children and youth with cancer a Oncology Clinic built by her Foundation in Gdańsk.

The unique, incomparable atmosphere that was an integral part of the process of overcoming the disease determined the uniqueness of this place. The inspiration for shaping the Gdańsk Clinic in this way were places that Jolanta Kwaśniewska saw during her visits around the world – where all possible solutions were used to introduce childhood atmospheres into children’s hospitals. The ground floor of the hospital was a underwater world, the realm of aquatic flora and fauna, the first floor was the level of land inhabited by countless animals, the second floor was the air level where a rainbow passed through the walls and ceiling of the corridor, and the rooms and other spaces were inhabited by winged animals.

In 2005, the Foundation became involved in the “They Must Live” project, aimed at creating new and financing existing transplant positions. This way, it supported Hematology and Oncology Centers in Poland.

For years, the Jolanta Kwaśniewska Foundation has been involved in organizing large-scale preventive-educational health programs such as “Being a Woman”, “Sweet New Life”, “Don’t Break, It’s O.K.”, “What Every Big Boy Should Know”, “Always Healthy, Always Active”, “Have a Heart, Take Care of Your Heart”.

Together with the TVN Foundation “You Are Not Alone”, the Jolanta Kwaśniewska Foundation initiated the “Renewing Hope” campaign, aimed at major renovations of 15 clinics at the Children’s Health Center in Warsaw.

At the initiative of the Foundation, the “+3 World Family Summit” took place in 2007, under the motto: “Overcoming Poverty: Mobilizing for Action through Building Trust, Agreement, Skills, and Partnerships”.

Thanks to the Foundation’s initiative, the document “European Standards of Care for Children with Cancer” was created in 2009, prepared with the aim of organizing and standardizing systems of care for children with cancer in the European Union.

From 2010 to the present day, Jolanta Kwaśniewska has been promoting proper attitudes among men related to gender equality, combating violence against women, and human trafficking by co-creating the “White Ribbon” Award and rewarding those who have said NO! to violence against women.

In 2011, thanks to Jolanta Kwaśniewska’s involvement, the Platform of Agreement of Parents’ Organizations of Children with Cancer was created, aiming to create a strong representation of the parents’ community in places where decisions significant to them are made.

In 2013, Jolanta Kwaśniewska became involved in leading an author’s program raising the issue of aging under the name “Embracing Aging”.

The program’s mission is to raise the issue of aging. The key assumption of the initiative is the exchange of intergenerational experiences through establishing and conducting dialogue. Already in 2014, Jolanta Kwaśniewska was a co-organizer of the first Nationwide Seniors Parade.

Jolanta Kwaśniewska constantly responds to the needs of others, the disadvantaged, the poor, the homeless, the hungry, and the abandoned.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the foundation has expanded its activities to Ukraine, cooperating with the Global Empowerment Mission (GEM) to provide humanitarian aid to war refugees and counteract the effects of war in Ukraine. To date, nearly $50 million worth of aid has been distributed to war refugees. As part of the collaboration, almost 40,000 war refugees have been relocated from temporary locations in Poland to countries in the European Union and around the world over a period of six months.