Dear all,
I would like to submit some personal recommendations for the organisers of the event which according to my perspective could improve future conferences with similar format.
I would like to acknowledge all the hard work that was put into the last conference and say a big “thank you” to everyone participating and acknowledge the organisers for the investment in the cause and in young people. It is an investment that should go on.
In order not to exhaust anyone with extended text, I present a summary of the recommendations which are followed by its further developed, for the ones who may be interested.
The title “diversity” would imply equal focus for all grounds of discrimination The topics of racism, xenophobia, antisemitism and islamphobia monopolized the conference, which doesn’t mean they are not valid causes but incoherent and misleading according to the title.
Further explanations
1. The misleading title of the conference
Words have meanings behind and are used as a political tool to put certain topics on the agenda of decision-making bodies. The word “diversity” is used in the European context to promote values that put people on an equal ground, independent of their ethnic or cultural background, religious beliefs, gender, sexual orientation, physical and mental ability or socio-economic class. The use of the word “diversity” in the title of the event mislead many of the young people who realised that the conference was obviously focused on the topics of racism, xenophobia, antisemitism and islamphobia with no intention of approaching other grounds of discrimination, as it can be clearly seen in the declaration. – These are very valid causes but not coherent with the title of the conference. The message ended up being that within the scope of “diversity” some causes are more of a priority, which is not what is defended by the ones who promote diversity as a value.
Suggestion: Create a title that truly reflects the agenda of the conference and is not misleading.
2. The diversity of the participants
In a conference focused on ‘diversity’ it would be expected that the group of participants would also be representative of this diversity. In the conference were present many committed young people and youth workers coming from variety of backgrounds working together which was admirable and something to praise. I would like to remind the organisers that there was no representation of young Roma or young people with disabilities in the conference.
3. “Nothing about us without us”
During Mr. Renee, the Director of Youth and Sport Director has mentioned a motto for the Council of Europe – “Nothing about us without us”, as it is an example the co-management system for youth. This conference was organised FOR young people, but not WITH young people. The implications of this choice resulted in a lost of interest from the participants to be engaged and contribute to the activity as it could be seen by the amount of absent people during the plenary sessions working on the final declaration.
For i.e.: During the opening in Centrum Judaicum, it was referred that the keynote speech of Mr. Reinaldas Vaisbrodas, President the European Youth Forum was an expression of youth involvement. Youth involvement means MORE than inviting a political representative of a youth platform – it means that young people are involved in all steps of the whole process, as co-decision makers, from logistics to process, from content to practice.
Suggestion: Involve the National Youth Council of Germany and/or German youth organisations in the whole process. The National Youth Council didn’t know until very late about the existence of this event.
Other reasons such as the choice of location and the lack of a pedagogical dimension also influenced this absence, which will be referred in the following points.
4. No evaluation
Congratulations for the European Commission and the German Government for the commitment to cause such as the ones present in the conference. If another event is to take place after two years, In order to guarantee improvements, it is important to create evaluation tools that are more efficient than just distributing evaluation forms at check in. How many of these forms were returned remains a question. The same way, a ‘dartboard’ evaluation was prepared in two panels outside the plenary room after the last session which remained unused.
Suggestion: Make evaluation a priority in the organisation of a next event in order to acess, adjust and improve, make it closer to it’s target group – young people in Europe.
5. No pedagogical approach
The conference was designed without including a pedagogical dimension. For example: although the opening in Centrum Judaicum had a powerful symbolic and political meaning, asking the participants to be ready at eight in the morning, to travel one hour by bus, to listen to three hours of speeches and then having fifteen minutes of discussion which was interrupted in order to travel one hour more is disrespectful towards the energy levels and attention capacity of any human being.
Another example, was the choice for the “hosts” of the conference who should have been more of “facilitators” and less of “presenters”.
Finally, discuss a declaration, in a plenary with more than one hundred people, exceeding the working schedule for more than two hours will lead people to exhaustion. Many points in the declaration were approved because the plenary was tired, not because it was agreed.
Suggestion: Include a more pedagogical dimension in the planning of the conference. Respect peoples energy and attention levels.
6. Location
The hotel had great infrastructures and resources. All the conditions made the staying extremely comfortable. It is important to have in mind two things. Firstly, although everything was provided, the fact that it the conference took place in a rather expensive hotel, this prevent young people coming from countries who are economically more disadvantaged couldn’t afford to socialize with ones who were drinking in the bar or playing bowling. Secondly, being in a hotel who is one hour away from Berlin, caused people who don’t have other opportunities to travel and that were unmotivated by the way the process was taking place to choose to travel to the city instead of attending parts of the conference.
7. “Tokenism” VS Representation
During the conference there was a very present use of the media: photography, video and internet. The first point to be made is that there was no request or comment on the rights for the use of image for public purposes BEFORE images started being collected. The second point is, there was a clear focus in gathering video images of people who were non-white. In the declaration it was expressed the concern for the use of people coming from socially excluded groups as a “token”, serving only political agendas and being the expression of a true structural change. Personally I would like to think that in a conference where such statements against tokenism were expressed, a misuse of video images will not take place.
8. Disrespect for process
There were many issues concerning the process that lead to the final declaration. The very first was attached to the different perceptions within the group of participants of what a declaration and an action plan should be.
The method of approval for the declaration was “consensus”. The way this “consensus” was verified was by clapping, which is not a method that allows assessing if there is in fact a consensus.
Although the method for approval was consensus, during a conflict situation, the editorial group took the initiative of asking for a voting on a part of the declaration which contradicted the principle of consensus.
Suggestion: Greater investment in preparation – especially with the facilitators of the discussions from which the different contributions to the declaration were taken.
9. The editorial group
The editorial group was composed by volunteers who have performed the Herculean task of combining all contributions into a common declaration, which they have achieved with success. In the process, much was compromised by the fact that this editorial group was volunteer and not selected by any particular editing skills, notion of language or political representation. The working groups that didn’t have a member participating in the editorial group saw the result of their discussions compromised due to the misunderstanding of what was the meaning behind, leading to the erasure of complete paragraphs.
Suggestion: That the editorial group is composes by at least one member of each working group who designed the drafts to be included in the declaration.
Hoping that my contributions are seen as proposals for improvement.
My best regards,
Luís Manuel Pinto
17 Nov. 05
Wed, 2005-12-07 19:04
Dear Luis,
Thank you for your comprehensive letter and your recommendations for future conferences. We appreciate your feedback as it shows that you care about the conference “Youth in Action for Diversity and Tolerance”. Your letter contains useful suggestions which we will consider in the preparation of future conferences.
We take good note of all your points and would like to comment on a few of them:
In your letter you state that the word “diversity” in the title implied that equal focus would have been put on all grounds of discrimination but that the topics of racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and islamophobia were at the centre of the conference. You are right. This does not come as a surprise as this conference was – as already clearly indicated in the pre-conference information - the follow-up conference to the 2001 conference “Youth for Tolerance and Democracy – A European perspective in the fight against racism and xenophobia”. Instead of reusing the words “fight against racism and xenophobia” we decided to go for a positive approach and focus more on “young people in action” for a good aim like “diversity and tolerance”. However, we take your point on the title and we take note of your suggestions for a European conference on young people and all grounds of discrimination.
In your letter you also state that young people should have been involved in the entire conference process. In fact, this is what happened. The participation of young people was important to us in all aspects, including the development and the realisation of the conference. Therefore young people who included participants in the 2001 conference as well as representatives of the European Youth Forum, were in fact members of the Advisory Board that helped us preparing the conference. Young people were thus involved in the whole process of the conference.
In your letter you say that you had wished for a greater diversity of participants. You also state that no young Roma participated. In fact, our clear aim was to ensure a wide range of participants. We think that we succeeded in ensuring the diversity of participants who indeed came from very different backgrounds. Among the participants were also young Roma.
As far as your insisting on evaluating the conference is concerned, we completely agree with you. We also insist on the evaluation of the conference and take it very serious. We are in the process of evaluating the anonymous feedback forms of the participants. We have an interest in improving and making our conferences tailor-made to the needs of young people. This is why we appreciate your feedback as well as that of other participants to the conference as you thus help us improving future conferences.
With kind regards,
The conference organisers
» login to post comments