Future Perspectives

The EFS effort continues: Cultures Interactive forms a partnership with the “European Network of Non-violence and Dialogue”, launched by PDCS Bratislava

The project “European Network of Non-violence and Dialogue” (ENND) was initiated by the NGO Partners for Democratic Change (PDCS), Bratislava, and started in August 2016. Its major goal is to promote nonviolent approaches to current value conflicts and to stimulate the process of collecting and sharing of what diverse CSOs have learned about third-party interventions, process-based tools for public debate, and the prevention of conflict, polarisation and violence in 7 different countries: Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and Germany.

The project focuses on conflicts that currently attract attention in European media and public, and, thus, stir public discussions, influence opinions and form values among citizens. Furthermore, the project aims to create a functional network that may become a counterbalance to tendencies in Central and Eastern Europe which diverge from the ideals and values of a united Europe. With this objective in mind, ENND also intends to form a network of civil society organisations and individuals who are capable of preventing and intervening in value conflicts, mitigating situations of polarisation and possibly also help de-radicalising individuals. Learning from each other, collecting tested conflict intervention approaches, supporting each other’s interventions, and organising public campaigns that promote common goals and values of human rights and European cooperation, are among the concrete aims of the ENND initiative.

One of the first public project activities was the international conference “Value-based Conflicts and Violence” on 5th-6th April 2017, in which EFS team member Oliver Kossack, Hungarian EFS trainer Rebeka Dora Kajos and Slovak EFS trainer Radoslav Sloboda participated in a panel discussion on the “(De-)radicalisation of youth.”

Read more about the ENND project: http://www.pdcs.sk/en/projects/european-network-for-non-violence-and-dialogue.html