Marek Janiga

Marek Janiga is a humanitarian worker who started with fundraising efforts after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and later founded an NGO – United for Help that he currently leads. Marek spent four months at the frontlines, coordinating humanitarian projects, and creating a network of NGOs working under the auspices of the Slovak Embassy in Ukraine. The collective efforts of the network raised over 300 thousand euros and he supervised the construction of two humanitarian centers in the Kherson and Donetsk regions. His previous work experience includes freelance journalism for the New York Times, implementing the SlovakAid projects in Iraq, and leading an alumni community of a US government scholarship program in Slovakia. As an elected student senator at Comenius University, Faculty of Law, he leads an initiative calling for a plural academic discussion after the proposal of controversial criminal code reform. Despite public ad hominem criticism by the Slovak Prime Minister, he managed to organize two expert panels on this topic under the auspices of the rector of Comenius University in Bratislava. In March 2025, he was selected as one of ten members of the inaugural NATO Youth Advisory Board.