Martin Hakel - Director of SK Magazine

Dear Readers,

the time has come for me to introduce myself and address you in the name of the Slovak Centre London and the publishing house of SKC Publishing UK Ltd. I am extremely happy to be able to say that this is already the seventh issue of this magazine and I do believe that it begins fulfilling its goal: to get the country we live in closer to the country we come from. I started nine years ago without any knowledge of English as an au pair and since then I have tried my hand at all sorts of jobs.

Therefore from my own experience I know that there is no such thing as free lunch. I consider it to be my success that three years ago I completed my bachelor studies in international relations in London. During all those years I became more and more aware of the unused potential of our community and of Slovakia as such. Therefore in the last nine years of my life I devoted my time to the work for the Slovak community in Great Britain and to the presentation of Slovakia abroad. With a team of enthusiastic volunteers without whom this magazine would not be published, and thanks to the financial support of the Office for the Slovaks living abroad to which I am extremely thankful, we have already organised several cultural events and presentations of Slovakia, such as the Slovak-British Balls or the Thames Festival 2005/06/07/08/09.

I believe we will continue in this successful co-operation in the future. The editorial team of SK Magazine is going to bring you interesting and useful articles about business possibilities, tourist industry and investment opportunities in Great Britain and Slovakia. We will be bringing stories about personal or business successes of Slovaks in Great Britain, and about the British in Slovakia. I believe that for all the Slovaks lacking in selfconfidence and assertiveness while trying to achieve their goals in Great Britain or on their return to Slovakia, we will be good inspiration and help.

For the British and the general public we want to be a useful source of information about Slovakia as a beautiful although not very well-known and still undiscovered country that has immense potential thanks to its location directly in the geographical centre of Europe.

Thank you for your time reading the SK Magazine and I am looking forward to your observations or interesting ideas that may be so useful for the development of this unique project.

You can contact me directly on my e-mail: director@skmagazine.eu

I wish you pleasant reading

Martin Hakel

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