The first stage of the conference was organized from 3 to 5 June 2021. Change makers from 10 countries met to create a network and brainstorm how to implement innovative international projects and launch successful cross-border cooperation.

“Dialogue for the Future 2021” is an international networking conference that provides a forum for ideas and exchange between civil society actors and experts on sustainability and digitalisation.

The conference gathers NGO representatives, universities, social entrepreneurs, artist collectives, etc., who are eager to work beyond borders and embark on joint projects and are coming from or professionally active in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Germany, France, Moldova, Poland, Russia and Ukraine.

“Dialogue for the Future 2021” consists of two parallels with eight exciting topics for the civil sector, panel discussions, facilitated networking sessions, a keynote and good practice presentations from experts and other NGOs, two meetings with the German Federal Foreign Office and an engaging Design Thinking workshop.

The event finishes with a project idea presentation and ceremony, where a professional jury decides who receives one of five mini-grants of up to 1000€. For a chance to win, participants have posted their idea on the Ideas’ Wall in the conference centre before the set deadline. The ideas with the most likes were presented on the last day of the conference and five chosen ideas  then received a mini-grant.

Everyone who presented an idea during the online event in June is invited to the second phase of the conference in Germany. The offline project bootcamp will take place in Mid-September in Berlin. Here participants will strengthen the relationship with project partners, visit Berlin-based NGOs and brainstorm your future project.

EENCE member experts had an active participation and contribution at the conference. Moreover, Narine Teknejyan, the board member and leader at the EENCE working group “Women in local communities” & Siarhei Salei, EENCE member and leader at EENCE working group “Human Rights Education”.

Narine Teknejyan has presented the project “From Facing stereotypes to ensuring gender equality” aims at raising awareness on gender issues, existing problems in gender equality and increasing the potential, knowledge and competencies of people in Eastern European region and abroad in respectful topics of the project. It intends to be a 6 month project. 

Siarhei Salei has presented a project idea to organize an online “Third Place” for human rights educators. It is planned to held regular (twice a month) non-formal meetings of educators from different European countries to reflect, discuss challenges and actual issues in the field of human rights education. Possible topics of the meetings could include international and regional policies, good practices, methodologies, project ideas, funding opportunities, collaboration, mutual support, etc.

The project ideas of Narine Teknejyan and Siarhei Salei received the most likes (votes) and were in the list of finalists. They had a chance to present their project ideas to the jury and be invited to Germany for a second phase of the conference.

More details about both project ideas, please find here.

See also:

Excel and Elevate! – Submit your master class as a part of the new EENCE initiative

Summer and autumn promise to be hot: see how much is planned within the framework of EENCE