From November 28th till December 5th, I had the honour to participate on a project in Moscow of the European Institute for Democratic Participation (EIDP) that was organised by Sabine Dankbaar en Pieter-Jan Baas. This project, named ‘Making social inclusion work: Skills in Action’, elaborated on discrimination against migrants and ethnic minorities and the role that democratic participation can play in improving the position of these subordinated groups.

After finding out I was chosen to represent the Netherlands in a Training Course in Bosnia-Hercegovina, I felt very privileged. Together with my colleague, Tom Vesters, we travelled to Croatia by plane. From Zagreb, the capital of this country, we had to find a bus to the town of Prijedor in the north-western part of Bosnia, located in the preponderantly Serbian part of the country. We managed to find a bus in the nick of time, by trying to understand the Balkan Esperanto. By talking Polish and Russian, we could understand some of what the locals said and they were able to help us with everything. I immediately felt welcomed and at home.

Training Course in Tbilisi, Georgia in November 2009
First of all, this training course was a wonderfull experience which I'll never forget. As one of the few participants from western Europe it was very educative to communicate and get to know people from "the East". There are so many cultural differences and that's also why a big part of the course was about cultural diversity. You work together in workgroups and have discussions about several subjects like citizenship, cultural diversity and human rights.

From 15 till 21 april I attended a seminar on democracy on Malta. Major issues we were dealing with were notions as democratic participation, active participatory citizenship and a common European consensus on this topics.