Stock Photo - The 2018 Kriegel Prize will go to Ilja Hradecky (right), the Nadeje (Hope) charity NGO director of many years, receives the prize, which has been annually granted by the Charter 77 Foundation since 1987, for continuous and brave aid to people in need, in Prague's Trmal Villa today, on Wednesday, May 23, 2018. He is recognised as an expert in the field of poverty and the homeless. Through his incessant work, Hradecky contributed to the present extent of activities of the Hope charity, as well as the overall development of social and healthcare-social services in the Czech Republic and helped to improve the public's attitude to people in need in general. Hradecky founded the Hope civic association, which provides assistance to people in social emergency, in 1990. Within 20 years of its existence, it became the biggest non-governmental social services facility in the country. In 1992, he founded the society for development of food banks and in 1994, the Czech federation of food banks. The prize is annually announced on April 10 on the anniversary of birth of Frantisek Kriegel. Hradecky the prize receives from priest, dissident and former Charter 77 spokesman Milos Rejchrt, centre, and sociologist Jirina Siklova, left. (CTK Photo/Vit Simanek)