Between 27 and 30 November in Voronezh took place international conference titled “The development of international civil initiatives against racism and violence in Russia and Russian-speaking countries”. More than 60 people from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, South Ossetia, Lithuanian, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Turkey and Scythia participated in conference.
We need new utopias, which would give us at least a chance to dream.
Daniel Goretsky, Andrey Yurov
"Theses on freedom"
Not only don’t you like these outrageous actions of the fascists, fundamentalists, radical nationalists, militarists, supporters of the "firm hand" - but you also think that our world was created for something completely different?
"Cooperation of NGOs, educational institutions, libraries and educational authorities in the field of preventing xenophobia among youth", Moscow (Russia), 8 November 2011, 14-00 – 17-00 in Conference Hall (International Memorial House/Karetni Ryad 5/10)
In the last years there appeared a great deal of approaches, methods and ideas in respond to xenophobia and discrimination, the rise of nationalism, and failure of multiculturalism ideology that present different views on how to oppose these challenges. All these ideas are based on different understandings of the world and social and educational work. Very often they are developed in closed teams, separate organizations and are practiced independently.
On September 10-12, 2011 the World Assembly "Civil society and global issues: improving situation" took place in Montreal (Canada). It is annually held under the aegis of CIVICUS – the World Alliance for Citizen Participation. There were several subject lines that grouped around all sessions of the Assembly: "Civil society and democratic space", "Connections between people via technology", "Development effectiveness" and "Climate justice".
From 26 September to 7 October, the Annual Meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on human dimension took place in Warsaw (Poland). The event was attended by the representatives of the OSCE member states, international experts, human rights defenders and NGOs activists.
A second study visit to the Netherlands on anti-racism and anti-fascism finished last week. The organizers of this tour for the young Russian activists were the European Network Against Racism (UNITED for Intercultural Action), the International Youth Human Rights Movement (YHRM) and the Youth Network against Racism and Intolerance (YNRI).
On September 25, the 5th session of the International Students School of Human Rights/Student Rights took place in Kyiv. Traditionally, the school is held for two days, the first of which is devoted to introducing the concept of Human Rights and advocacy, and the second – to Student Rights and searching solutions to the problems relating to students as a social group.
Over 100 human rights defenders from almost 90 countries have once again met in Dublin (Ireland) at the Dublin Platform for Human Rights Defenders, which took place from 14 to 16 September. FRONTLINE organizes the Dublin Platform every two years, allowing human rights defenders to meet each other, to share their experience and ideas, and to discuss with each other and with representatives of governmental and intergovernmental organizations the problems of their countries and regions.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a unique international document passed by the United Nations in 1948. It was created by experts from Australia, Canada, China, Lebanon, the USSR, France and other countries.
Declaration was the first global document which stated value of human life, human dignity, freedom, and equality. For the first time in history of mankind these ideals formed the basis for international laws.
On 15th of August the first training “Non- racism like a principal of non-formal education”, based on methods of German handbook for non-racism education, finished in Voronezh. More over it was the first not only in Russia, but in all field of CIS. This meeting was organized from 13th to 15th August by the International Youth Human Rights Movement and the Human Rights House- Voronezh in cooperation with the authors of handbook Baustein zur nicht-rassistischen Bildungsarbeit (Германия) with support of the European network UNITED for Intercultural Action.
The IV Summer Human Rights School, which was organized by the Moscow Helsinki Group and the International Youth Human Rights Movement from 3rd to 10th of July in Moscow, finished at last week. The School brought together human rights defenders and civil activists, volunteers and experienced NGO’s workers and those, who work in human rights state institutes.
The Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting of OSCE took place in July 7-8 in Vienna. This meeting was about promoting of pluralism in new media. YHRM representatives from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine participated in it.
The feature of this kind of meetings is that official representatives of 56 OSCE members and observers sit at one table and speak on equal terms with NGO. This is a unique mechanism of participation in meetings and debates with states and civil society representatives.
Something very interesting happened in early June in Moscow: YHRM participants and correspondents - initiators of new born Youth Network of civil journalism managed to came together and worked out a common vision of the network development.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority It is time to sit back and reflect.
Mark Twain
Выступление Андрея Юрова на полях Встречи ОБСЕ по человеческому измерению, посвященное взаимодействию гражданских организации и ОБСЕ (Варшава, 29.09.2011)
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