Tag: Azerbaijan

Academy Robert Bosch Fellowship (Russia and Eurasia)

Academy Robert Bosch Fellowship

Chatham House, in partnership with the Robert Bosch Stiftung, hosts fellows from the six countries of the Eastern Partnership and Russia.

The fellowship offers an opportunity for the next generation of scholars from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine to advance their knowledge of post-Soviet politics, develop research skills, contribute to Chatham House research, and build links with policy and academic communities in the UK, Germany and the EU more broadly. The fellowship is aimed at future leaders, researchers and opinion-makers in the early stages of their careers.

The fellows spend nine months working at Chatham House with the Russia and Eurasia Programme team. During this time they will conduct a research project of their own design relating to the politics, economies and/or societies of the post-Soviet region. In the course of the fellowship, the scholars will conduct research trips to the region and also spend time at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin. The fellowships are part of Chatham House’s Queen Elizabeth II Academy for Leadership in International Affairs.

Call for applications 2016/17
The 2016/17 application window is now open and will close on 31 May 2016.

To apply, please refer to the information pack and application form as well as our FAQ page. The application form and accompanying documents should be completed and emailed to AcademyRobertBoschFellowships@chathamhouse.org by 17:00 BST 31 May 2016.

Interviews are scheduled to take place in London on 15 July 2016.

Research topics
Research projects should be designed by you. However, you should bear in mind what would also be relevant to an international policy institute. Your project should therefore fall into one or more of the following broad categories:

Internal Dynamics
1. Prospects for Economic Growth, Modernization and Democratization in the Eastern Partnership Countries and/or Russia
2. Regional Elites and Networks of Power
3. Societal Changes, Inter-ethnic Relations and Non-state actors

External Attitudes
4. The Future of EU and NATO Relations with the Eastern Partnership Countries and/or Russia
5. Security and Conflict Resolution
6. Prospects for Intra-regional Conflict or Cooperation
7. Russia and the Shared Neighbourhood with Europe

Contact
Should you have any further queries please email the Academy.

ATYA Azerbaijan youth group looking for partners

Fakhrinur HUSEYNLI writes:

We have had a youth NGO in Azerbaijan since 2002 which is interested in joining international projects and activities. If you wish, we are ready to sign partnership agreements to organize joint projects in Azerbaijan or send our active young participants to your coming activities in 2014 under Erasmus+ and other foundation programs.

If there are any small participation fees for your programs, our participants are ready to pay that amount. They will be glad to be part of your coming academic programs, workcamps, summer camps, internship, volunteer and training activities.

Thanks for your cooperation in advance. We are looking forward to cooperating with you in 2014.

Further information about ATYA:
Azerbaijan Tafakkur Youth Association (ATYA) is a national NGO working towards building better civil society. The organization is located in Absheron region (between Baku and Sumgait cities). ATYA has been mainly active in disseminating information on Human Rights Education, Peace Promotion and Civil Society Building. We look forward to creating local-international partnerships with great pleasure for organize fruitful and interesting projects for the sake of peace building, youth empowerment and civil society development.

The main purpose of ATYA is enlightenment, especially youth, on the social, scientific-cultural, legal spheres, to development thinking and to strengthen their role in civil society building.

Main activities:

  • Art and cultural exchange, conflict solution, intercultural learning and peace building;
  • NGO/Civil society and community building/development;
  • Youth empowerment, capacity building, apprenticeship and business education;
  • Advocacy, active citizenship, youth exchange and voluntarism;
  • Human rights education and promotion;
  • Healthy life style (HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria);
  • Environment and biodiversity education.

For more information on Azerbaijan Tafakkur Youth Association, ATYA, see this video.

Those interested in potential collaborations should contact:
Fakhrinur HUSEYNLI
Director of Institute for Peace & Dialogue

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John Parrish-Sprowl Fulbright

John Parrish-Sprowl
Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis

Fulbright Senior Specialist to Macedonia and Belarus

From 2002-2007 I worked under the auspices of a USAID grant to assist in the development of a new university in Tetovo Macedonia. South East Europe University (SEEU) was created in response to one of the agreements flowing from the Lake Ohrid Accords following a brief civil conflict between the ethnic Macedonians and the ethnic Albanians regarding a number of issues, including the dearth of higher education opportunity for ethnic Albanians.  When our USAID grant was completed SEEU wanted me to do some additional workshops, lectures, and consultation and I was brought in twice (December 2007 and February 2008) to work with various groups.

In March of 2012, because I was still on the Senior Specialist roster, I was supported in the guest speakers program to do some lectures at the Belarusian State University, Yanka Kupala University in Grodno, and to present the keynote plenary presentation at a conference held in Grodno Belarus.

Due to my work in both countries, partially supported by Fulbright, I have made many friends and engage in a number of long standing collaborative efforts.  Although only a small part of my international work (I currently have projects underway in Indonesia, Vietnam, Azerbaijan based on a private foundation grant, and an extensive history in Poland that began on a USAID grant) I think the Fulbright program offers great opportunities for people to work, meet, and collaborate with colleagues from other countries in ways that enrich both our lives and our scholarship.

World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue – Report

On April 7-9, 2011, the World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue was held in Baku, Azerbaijan. I gave a presentation entitled: “Dialogue about Dialogue: Taking a (Meta)Communication Perspective on the Role of Women in Intercultural Dialogue.” All presentations will be posted to the Forum site in the near future, and published in a proceedings volume.

The World Forum was supported by the UN Alliance of Civilizations, UNESCO, Council of Europe, North-South Center of the Council of Europe, ISESCO and Euronews. Building on several prior events, the Forum highlighted intercultural dialogue as one of the most pressing challenges that the global community faces today. The forum addressed conceptual, governmental, policy and practical aspects of intercultural dialogue, providing an opportunity for sharing good practices and making new connections. In addition, since the event was hosted by the President of Azerbaijan, we were all treated as guests of the state, and went everywhere with a security escort. Highlights were the formal entertainment and elaborate banquets on both Thursday and Friday evenings. Upon our arrival, we were given not only the usual conference program, small notebook and briefcase labeled with the conference information, but also dozens of brochures and a guidebook about Azerbaijan. When we returned from closing ceremonies, a gift package was waiting, with a small handmade carpet and hand-painted silk scarf (local craft specialties), a mug and local tea, as well as a bronze plaque noting our participation. In fact, there were so many presents that I mailed them back to the US rather than carry them around with me for the next several months.

The Forum was opened by the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, His Excellency Mr. IIham Aliyev. The plenary panel on which I participated was “Women as Key Agents of Intercultural Dialogue.” This panel was co-chaired by Dr. Katérina Stenou (Director, Cultural Policy and Intercultural Dialogue, UNESCO, and member of this Center’s Advisory Board) and the First Lady of Azerbaijan, Ms. Mehriban Aliyeva (she is also President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador). Rapporteur for the panel was Ms. Pramila Patten (CEDAW expert). The other panelists were: Ms. Hijran Huseynova (Chairperson of the State Committee on Family, Women and Children Affairs, Azerbaijan); Ms. S.Y.Orlova (Deputy chair of Council of Parliament of Russian Federation), Ms. Rachida Dati (Mayor of the 7th arrondissement of Paris), Ms. Concepcion Olavarrieta (Chair of the Mexican Node of  the Millennium Project), Ms. Mbarka Bouaida (Member of Parliament, Morocco), and Mr. Alexander Ageev, (General Director of Institute of Economic Strategies, Department of Humanitarian Sciences, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian Federation). Respondents to the panel included several ministers of culture, as well as Dr. Ruth Halperin-Kaddari (Director, The Ruth and Emanuel Rackman Center for the Advancement of Women’s Status, Bar-Ilan University, Israel), Dr. Bibi Bakare-Yusuf (publisher of Casava Republic Press, based in Abuja, Nigeria), and Ms. Natalia Molebatsi (performance poet and storyteller, based in South Africa).

The majority of the Forum’s participants were ministers of culture or other politicians (and I did meet a few, including Ms. Irina Cajal-Marin, Under Secretary of State for the Ministry of Culture in Romania, and Mr. Ali Elamin, Director of the Minister’s Office for Sudan). Others were CEOs of NGOs or non-profits (and among those I met were Ms. Wajiha Haris, President of Scheherazade, in Bucharest, Romania, Dr. Catherine Fieschi, Director of Counterpoint, just separated from the British Council, in London, Ms. Lila de Chaves, President of Heritage & Museums, in Athens, and Mr. Peter Gorgievski, CEO of Global Dialogue Foundation in Moonee Ponds, Australia). There were also a number of people connected to one of the international organizations co-sponsoring the event (I met several, including Mr. Hans d’Orville, Assistant Director-General for Strategic Planning of UNESCO in Paris, Dr. Liubava Moreva, Program Specialist for Culture in UNESCO’s Moscow office, and Ms. Neslihan Demirkol Sonmez, representing the Turkish National Commission for UNESCO; as well as Dr. Mir Asghar Husain, of the North-South Centre Think Tank for the Council of Europe). There were even a few other faculty present (I met Dr. Darla K. Deardorff, Executive Director of the Association  of International Education Administrators, based at Duke University in the US). And these are only some of those with whom I exchanged business cards – I am looking forward to continuing conversations with dozens of people as a result of the event.

Two other events occurred simultaneously with the Forum, an academic conference (“Traditions and prospects for intercultural dialogue in CIS countries: culture, education and communication”), as well as the first convention of the Global Youth Movement for the Alliance of Civilizations, and so I met some individuals from each of those events. For example, Ms. Emilia Katosang (Deputy Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of Palau to the UN) and Ivaylo Stoimenov (a Bulgarian journalist) were both part of the GYM meeting; Prof. Samir Sleiman (cultural anthropologist in Lebanon, and Editor in Chief of Le Debat) presented at the academic conference. I also met several of the many international journalists covering the event, including Mr. Mohammad Malick, of The News, in Pakistan, and Mr. Ghassan Ali Osman, covering the event for Sudan. And, like most of the presenters, I was interviewed for Azerbaijani television. The audience was so large (600-1000, depending on whether participants of the 3 events overlapped at the same event or not), that two screens were used to ensure everyone could view the speakers. Look for images of Katérina Stenou on screen, and then being interviewed in the gallery included below.

Ms. Samaya Mammodova and Ms. Chinara Shakarova, two English majors studying in Baku, were assigned to help the dozen participants from the USA. Since I had a few hours free Saturday morning, after the conference concluded but before leaving for the airport, they took me on a personal tour of Icheri Shekhar (the old city in Baku). A few photos are below, for those who have not yet been to Baku themselves, along with photos of the conference.

My thanks to Katérina Stenou for my invitation to participate in this fascinating event. And thanks to Neslihan Demirkol Sonmez for 2 of the photos included below (the one of the dinner celebration, and 4 of us talking).

Euronews video coverage of the event is now available online. (I’m included, but as part of a conversational grouping, so look carefully!)

Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz
Director, Center for Intercultural Dialogue

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World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue

The Government of Azerbaijan is organising a “World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue”, to be held in Baku from 7 to 9 April 2011. The initiative has the support of the Council of Europe, including the North-South Centre, UNESCO, the UN Alliance of Civilizations and ISESCO. Building on previous events on this theme held in the Azerbaijani capital – known as the “Baku process” – and on the corpus of work developed by the stakeholder organisations in recent years, the Forum highlights the fact that intercultural dialogue is one of the most pressing challenges in the world today.

The Forum will address the conceptual, governance, policy and practical aspects of the challenge of intercultural dialogue. It will tackle issues such as the barriers to dialogue and the diverse contexts in which it can be pursued. It will also provide an opportunity to share good practice and launch new initiatives. A wide range of practitioners and experts in the field of culture will attend the Forum, from global leaders and public figures to prominent intellectuals and activists. The synergy between political leaders and officials, experts and practitioners will be encouraged by the scope for informal networking organised around the event.”

(Original from http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/cultureheritage/culture/CDCULT/Newsletter/newsletter2_en.asp)

Call for partners – Azerbaijan April 2011

“Youth Exchange Public Union would like to invite 24 young people from 10 European countries to Baku for 7 day-training about intercultural and inter-religious dialogue…The training is scheduled for 01-07 April 2011 and will be hosted in Baku Azerbaijan Republic. Financial support is under the European Commission’s “Youth in Action” programme granting scheme. If approved, all costs will be covered except for 30% of the international travel and visa costs. Organizations from all 27 EU member countries plus Liechtenstein, Norway, Iceland and Turkey, YOUTH IN ACTION PROGRAMME countries, EECA countries are eligible to be partners. The working language of the Training Course is English.”

The deadline is November 1, 2010. See original posting for full details.

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