On 23 October 2025, in Berlin, George Soros was awarded the European Civil Rights Prize of the Sinti and Roma. This prize honors individuals who have made outstanding contributions to advancing the rights, dignity and empowerment of Roma communities across Europe. Over more than forty years, Mr. Soros has worked to promote equality, human rights and economic empowerment for communities long excluded from Europe’s formal economy. Through the Open Society Foundations (OSF), he has confronted structural barriers – from limited access to employment to the scarcity of affordable finance.
As one of the organizations supported in its early stages by the Soros Economic Development Fund, the impact investment arm of OSF, REDI Fund has witnessed the practical consequences of that commitment. We have seen, time and again, that Roma entrepreneurs are as creditworthy and capable as their non-Roma peers when given equal access to markets and financing. The early backing of the Economic Development Fund validated what we already believed: given the right instruments, talent and ambition translate into measurable results.
George Soros believed in the REDI Fund and put his own money on the line when no one else would. He saw the potential of the REDI Fund where everybody else saw risk. That was not a gesture of abstract charity; it was a strategic investment in people, institutions and systems that enable sustained economic participation. It is precisely this kind of early, courageous investment that turns pilots into programmes and promise into practice.
Hope vs. disillusion. That phrase captures the choice facing those of us working for inclusion. We can allow good intentions and unmet promises to calcify into disappointment – or we can build the structures that convert hope into durable opportunity. REDI chooses the latter.
Today, we are turning choice into action. We are on the path to mobilize €30 million in investments and to scale the REDI Fund’s model to Montenegro and Albania, with Turkey under active consideration for the next phase. This expansion is not growth for growth’s sake. It is a deliberate effort to create inclusive financial and market infrastructures so that Roma-led businesses can thrive on equal terms: access to finance, practical training, and real market opportunities. These are the levers that produce responsibility, professionalism and measurable impact.
Journalist Elizabeth Rubin, in her piece “Inside the Archives: George Soros and the Fight for Roma Dignity,” tells powerful, embodied stories of change – from Salija Petrushovska in North Macedonia to Sladjana Marinkovic in Serbia – demonstrating that barriers in business can be broken when opportunity meets determination (link in the comments). These are not isolated anecdotes; they are proof points for a model that scales.
The European Civil Rights Prize recognizes not only Mr. Soros’s decades-long commitment but also the fact that the work must continue. On his behalf, the award was received by Alexander Soros, Chair of the Open Society Foundations. Past recipients have included former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and architect Daniel Libeskind – names that remind us this Prize celebrates both moral leadership and practical change.
For REDI, the path ahead is clear. We will deepen the REDI Fund’s capacity to deploy capital responsibly, influence policy to remove systemic barriers, and partner with local stakeholders to institutionalize inclusion. Our aim is to move beyond exceptional projects toward an enduring standard: one where equal access to finance and markets is the rule, not the exception.
I am grateful to George Soros and to Open Society Foundations for seeing, early on, what was possible. Their willingness to take the risk gave the REDI Fund the runway to prove that investment in Roma entrepreneurship is sound, scalable and socially transformative. Our responsibility now is to multiply that success – to translate hope into opportunity, and to ensure that disillusionment never becomes the legacy of another generation.