How was the Forum for you?

We are keen for you to contribute your ideas and reflections on the very first Forum.

Please leave your comments below.

Video of the Omar Faruk & Aisikides concert

With this video of the closing music performance i am wrapping up my participation in this blog. Thank you, ALF, for demonstrating how music bridges cultural gaps.

Carmel Vaisman

people ans dialogue

Hallo every one … over here you can find a photo album for pictures i shotted in the conference .. hope you like it and Enjoy

People and Dialogue

Videos from the session on Media representation

For those of you who missed and those who wanna re-watch and share, here are the presentations of Lisa Goldman and Ethar El-Katatney from Friday’s fascinating session on media representation and the roles of new media in that. happy women day!

Carmel Vaisman

Can Culture Bring People Together?

Image by infomatique via Flickr

Before I came to the Forum, I was concerned with the “obession” as I saw of NGO’s in the area of intercultural dilaogue on Art and Culture.

I come Ireland where Art and Culture are not something that everyday people relate to in ordinary language. So it was hard to reconcile in my head how bring people together for music or art will make people have a dialogue.

The Closing Ceremony

This morning we will hear from Andre Azoulay, President of the Anna Lindh Foundation, who will chair the session.

We will hear from the rapporteurs of the various sessions
Ljubov Lisssina (Trajectorya, Estonia) Education, Intercultural Learning and Youth
Serene Huleileh (The Arab Education Forum, Jordon) Cultural and Artistic Collaborations
Garba Diallo (Crossing Borders, Denmark) Creating Spaces of Peace and Coexistence
Mario Alves (ACE ETNIA, Protugal) Cities, Migrants and Diversity
Norbert Hintersteiner (Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin) Religion, Spirituality and Values
Katarina Stigwall (Head of Network Sweden) Medina
Yousri Darwish (Head of Network Palestine) Medina
Carmen Sammut (Euromed Taskforce, Malta)

There will then be an overview by Michele Capasso (Head of Network, Italy) and Andre Claret (Executive Director, Anna Lindh Foundation)

We will then hear from the Euro-Med Award 2010 winners, Combatants for Peace and History in Action.

Following that there will be intstitutional interventions from Antonio Fogué Moya (President of the Diputcaió e Barcelona, Spain), Abdulhadi Majali (President of the EMPA, Jordan) and Abdelmaksoud Rachdi  (Chair of the Euromed Non-Governmental Platform, Morrocco)

Then Andre Azoulay, President will close the forum.

The live blog is here

Free project marketing!

Does your project deserve more visibilty? Do you want more people to know about your project? Are you still looking for partners? If so then why not contact me. We can talk either today or after the forum by email (foxdenuk@gmail.com ) and then your project is featured in the Absolutely Intercultural podcast. It’s that simple. That’s me in the picture so just tap me on the shoulder.

We podcast in English but I could summarise a French interview too.

Anne Fox

http://www.absolutely-intercultural.com

Participation? Run!!

Hi Everyone,

I will try to be as short as my laptop’s battery will allows me, as my charger broke down this morning, and I don’t know what a Blogger like me will do without using his own laptop, my assignment for tonight is to find a computer shop or whatever to buy a new one!

I wanted to comment on what happened on that workshop of the ALF Blogger Network; we were sitting Me, Stephane, Majd, Carmel and Bahz. Then Xavi tried to explain to the people that he will divide them into small groups, and every group will share with us their ideas and thoughts about social media; trying to express their own opinion in both its opportunities and challenges.

9 Persons, that’s was the number or more that ran outside of the room, in a funny shocking way that kept us laughing, okay Xavi stop them! But he was brave enough to prove that this idea of participation is not a movie that you can watch, or a nice show you can laugh or comment on it, but no, it’s a game, that you have to be part of it, and to play it goes.

After the workshop and the live demo on how to become a blogger, I told them that I’m happy with the people who stayed, and for the guys that ran out of the room when they heard the word participation! Come on! Nothing is impossible until proven wrong!

Participate,

Be Active,

Get Involved.

Keep Safe and Brave!

Mohamed Ezz Aldin (Egypt)

Democratic deficit

What was it all about? We’re drawing to the end of the second day. I decided to follow the Building Bridges, Restoring Trust strand but as I look back on these two days there are some themes which kept recurring:

Democracy
This was a theme heard most often in relation to the southern shores of the Mediterranean but what I heard nothing about and which I think is equally worrying is the massive declines in voter turnout in the North. The North may have the trappings of democracy but for how much longer if no-one takes part? Maybe the good news story here is that people are participating in other ways. But the only massive turnout I’ve heard about is for the Big Brother evictions.

Using the internet

Can I just say how strange it is to be participating in a conference of over 800 people, and only have two or three people blogging and twittering?

I know that only a small number of those 800 people work in the media, but we’re all here talking about intercultural dialogue. And one of the main way intercultural dialogue takes place, in the world we live in today, is through the internet. It’s used positively and negatively, to promote dialogue and dissent. And in America, it’s now the third most popular news platform, falling behind local and national television outlets, according to the latest Pew Research Center report released last week.

So where is everyone?

Ethar El-Katatney