- Communiqués de presse
In Flensburg / Flensborg the project "Minorities in Western Balkans*" was hosted again last week! In order to learn with and from each other, representatives of the minorities and respective authorities from the countries Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania met. After a welcome in the office of the House of Minorities by Dr. Kerstin Kötschau (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit-GIZ), and Dieter Paul Küssner (member of the Danish minority and FUEN Vice President), the participants learned about the German-Danish minority history during a guided tour through Flensburg. During a visit to the Flensburg refugee relief center (Flüchtlingshilfe Flensburg), different ways of dealing with the refugee situation were discussed and addressed to specific situations in the respective countries.
This year's focus is on the implementation of local projects and the promotion of cooperation between authorities and civil society in the Western Balkans. One such project, which is supervised by the FUEN, is an office for minority commissioner in Bijeljina in Bosnia and Hercegovina. To this end, the representatives of the minority NGOs and municipality of Bijeljina have completed a training with Ms. Linda Pieper from Schleswig-Holstein’s state chancellery’s department for external relations and national minorities. Hereby, dialogue promotion, trust building and network maintenance were central to the event.
The delegation took part in a panel discussion with Prof. Dr. Tove Malloy (European Centre for Minority Issues- ECMI), Gösta Toft (FUEN vice president), and Jens A. Christiansen (secretary general of Sydslesvigsk Forening-SSF), to learn about the “Dialogforum Norden”. Mr. Toft has pointed out a quotation from former minority commissioner, Mrs. Renate Schnack, which describes the minority model of the German-Danish border region: "It is not possible to copy the model, however in order to install something similar you have to understand how this model works”. The participants agreed to this, since local situations are very different. However, there are still practical examples of the strengthened protection of minorities in the different regions.
To this end, the visit to the North Frisian Community was very important to the participants, since similarly to the Sinti and Roma minority they are minorities without a mother state/ kin-state. In the "Nordfriisk Instituut" the group gained a good insight into the history and culture of the Friesians. The Mayor of Bredstedt / Bräist Knut Jessen and his deputy, Ilse Johanna Christiansen, welcomed the delegation in the town hall. Bojana Savić from Bosnia said: "We are thrilled by the friendliness and openness of the community. For us every door was open, I am not used to this." The local innkeeper Toni Celjak, who was born in Croatia, spoiled us with his delicacies during dinner.
The last day of the program was spent in Kiel with a focus on education. First the delegation went to the national association of German Sinti and Roma (Landesverband der Sinti und Roma) where education and social counselors explained how they support the Sinti and Roma families in integrating the children into the school system. Today, many Sinti and Roma still live with fear and are therefore scared when sending their children off to school. However, if the root cause of the problem are identified correctly, the cultural differences and misunderstandings can be avoided with the right tools. The educational and social counselors act as bridge builders between the state school system and the Sinti and Roma families and can thus build trust between them. The delegation spent the afternoon at the Ministry of the Interior at the invitation of the State Chancellery. Here the visitors were introduced to the official school system of Schleswig Holstein.
FUEN Project manager Matic Germovšek Ž. thanks all stakeholders and looks confidently into the future: "The exchange with the Western Balkan countries is particularly important in these times; so we can network and learn from each other." The participants are also looking forward to new input and the expansion and deepening of their networks.
More pictures of the Study Tour here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/fuen-fuev/albums
The Documentary Movie of the Western Balkans Project you can find in three languages here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRSne4L-qeE
*The project "Minorities in Western Balkans" is an activity in the frame of “Bund-Länder Programmes”, assigned by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and partly financed by the State Chancellery of Schleswig-Holstein. After a successful first phase in 2016, the project continues in 2017. The BMZ project is implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN), and the European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI). In 2017 several subprojects were developed by our local partners with the support and experience from FUEN and ECMI. What makes this project special, is that we are striving for cooperation between the NGOs and the authorities of the Western Balkans partners. More about the ECMI Projects here.
