The ONE HEART Foundation was founded in spring 2023 by Adéla Knapová
She is also the first chair of the administrative board...
Why I set up the foundation
"A better life for animals is directly linked to an improvement in the global ecological crisis."
Some of you know me, I've been a writer and journalist for over twenty-five years. But for far longer, basically for as long as I can remember, I have observed the distorted relationship of society to animals.
Animals are living and feeling beings like us. They feel not only joy and love, gratitude and friendship, but also pain and fear. Yet majority society treats them as things without emotions and pain receptors. This perverted paradigm is automatically propagated within the public space in contemporary society. The indefensible and unethical system of intensive livestock production, with factory farms at its centre, is an "achievement" of less than the last century.
Ethics aside, it is also perverse that this intensive animal industry continues to thrive despite the fact that scientists have long warned of its fatal impact on the destruction of the world's ecosystem..
I have been trying to set a personal example in my approach to animals all my life, hoping that something must change... Last year, however, while preparing a report for Reflex, I visited several dozen Czech factory farms and found that the suffering of animals in them has not only not decreased over the past decade, but often quite the opposite.
The overwhelming response of shocked readers, but also of those who blamed me for showing the unbearably cruel reality and who consequently didn’t enjoy the taste of meat and cheese in supermarkets any more, made me feel the need to do more. That is why I founded the ONE HEART Foundation.
Before that, I became a visionary and a patron of the campaigns www.konecdobyklecove.cz and End Factory Farming, an international organization fighting to improve the lives of farm animals Compassion in World Farming.
As a journalist and now mainly as the founder of the fund, I work with activists, experts and officials in high positions in the Czech Republic and the EU who are directly responsible for the legislation and functioning of this area..
To give a voice to those who don't have one.
Tomáš Mikolov
member of the administrative board
He is a world-renowned scientist in the field of artificial intelligence, among other things a recipient of the Neuron Prize for significant scientific discovery. He has already revolutionized the field of AI during his studies and subsequently worked in Silicon Valley for Google, Facebook and Microsoft. Now, among other things, he leads his own research team at CTU.
Marcela Vostřelová
member of the administrative board
She is an illustrator, designer, lecturer and the founder of POP - PAP publishing house, which is dedicated to publishing interactive books with a twist that allow curious children to exercise their creativity and imagination and involve their parents in reading and creating. Out of her love for nature and our planet, last year she also published her new book "MEKY MEK!" a real-life farm animal story, through which she guides readers to respect all living beings without distinction.
Ivan Holoubek
inspector
He is not only a professor of environmental chemistry and professor emeritus at Masaryk University, but also a world authority on chemical pollution. Among other things, he founded and led the Centre for Research on Chemicals in the Environment (RECETOX). As a representative of the Czech Republic, he has participated in the implementation of international treaties on chemicals, he is also active in the Centre for Global Change Research (CzechGlob), he has long participated in UN programmes on the impact of chemicals on the environment, human health etc.
"We don't need any studies to see and hear how animals suffer."
Kristýna Bártlová
executive team leader
She studied at several universities in professional fields ranging from conservation and environmental design, to sustainable biosphere development, to real estate valuation. A successful entrepreneur, nature and freedom lover with an analytical mindset who finds complex and complicated phenomena challenging. She believes that improving animal welfare also constitutes an improvement in the environment and people.