15. 12. 2020 | European Digital Diplomacy Exchange, PR
First stop of the EDDE Eastern Europe Virtual Roadshow – in Ukraine – has come to an end. Fully packed two-day training took place on 14 and 15 of December over ZOOM platform. Almost 100 government communicators gathered to listen to the lectures ranging from communication theory, the evolution of the digital media information landscape, digital rhetoric, developing effective messaging campaigns, countering disinformation and propaganda to the usage of social media and essentials on visual communication.
The second – and the last – virtual tour stop will take place on 16 and 17 December in Georgia for Georgian government communicators
The Training was organized by The Centre for European Perspective, together with the U.S. Department of State.
15. 12. 2020 | Learning compass, PR, Youth
Learning Compass activities in BiH end with a high-level meeting
For more about the project click here.
The activities of the Learning Compass project, focusing on the exchange of experience among teachers, special educators and everyone involved in the educational process of children with disabilities, were presented to the representatives of ministries for the field of education in Bosnia and Herzegovina, headmasters of schools involved in the program and other participants of the discussion.
The meeting on Monday was opened by words of welcome from CEP Executive Director Ms Katja Geršak and with the opening speech by H.E Ms Bukinac, Slovene Ambassador in BiH, who expressed the importance of the issue for Bosnia and Herzegovina. We thank the Ambassador and the Embassy of SLO in Sarajevo for their support during the project activities.
Mr Jernej Grahor, CEP Project Manager, Mr Marko Strle, Director of the Centre for Communication, Hearing and Speech Portorož and Dr Anica Mikuš Kos, Psychiatrist, Paediatrician and President of the Slovene Philanthropy later presented the project activities and its aims and shared the remarks on the complications of education of children with disabilities during COVID-19 as expressed by training participants during the training in November.
Ms Lejla Kisić, President of Udruženje Soci also shared the experience of special educators, especially during the ongoing pandemic and the work of Udruženje Soci. The teachers present during the November training have also worked to pass their knowledge and experience among their colleagues, further expanding the learning compass network.
The training program might have concluded, but what all three speakers stresses was the following – the trainings were just a part of a learning process and contributed another block in the building of a network of educators, that will include the cooperation of more individuals and continue the mission of the project – continued cooperation, sharing of experience and helping educators, teachers and all involved in the education of children with disabilities in ensuring a better future for children with disabilities.
The project is part of programme activities of Slovenia’s Development Cooperation Programme supported by the Slovenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs / Ministrstvo za zunanje zadeve RS.
Further information:
Jernej Grahor
Project Manager
CEP
12. 12. 2020 | European Digital Diplomacy Exchange, PR
Due to covid-19 pandemic, the second part of European Digital Diplomacy Exchange (EDDE) Eastern Europe Roadshow, taking place in Ukraine and Georgia is touring virtually. It is starting off with a training for Ukrainian government communicators on 14 and 15 December following with the training for Georgian government communicators on 16 and 17 December 2020. Both trainings are organized by The Centre for European Perspective, together with the U.S. Department of State.
ICT revolution has undoubtedly transformed the way people across the world communicate and exchange information. The effectiveness of digital diplomacy in each country is very much dependent on how diplomats and other professionals use digital communication tools to understand and transform their online presence to achieve their goals and objectives. At the times of covid-19 pandemic, the era of broken trust, the knowledge and skills that government representatives need to aquire to effectively communicate with their citizenry are proven to be more important then ever.
This trainings will help to improve the communication approaches, learn about how to develop effective messaging campaigns to perform better in the digital space. Moreover, the trainings will not forget about the dark side of the digital, so the participants will be able to know more about disinformation and how to counter this phenomenon.
11. 12. 2020 | POTC, PR, Security
Since March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has emerged as a major global crisis. Consequently, it has led to a number of restrictive measures in an effort to tackle the virus and accordingly, it affected international missions and operations worldwide.
This brought about a number of unprecedented challenges in the field of military mobility.
The Military Mobility Workshop, which took place in a virtual manner on 10th of December 2020, was kicked off by a welcome address and introductory remarks by Mr Valter Vrečar, M.Sc, Acting Director-General of the Defence Affairs Directorate, Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Slovenia and Colonel Anže Rode, Deputy Chief of Staff for Support, Slovenian Armed Forces. They both emphasized the importance of cooperation and coordination, also through workshops like this.
In the morning session, representatives of eight countries held presentations on experiences, lessons learned, legal limitations and possible improvements of an existing international framework. In the afternoon session participants were put in two syndicate groups in which specific topics built around military mobility in case of COVID-19 were discussed. On the basis of the outcomes, a set of recommendations were drafted, finalized and shared by the Republic of Slovenia that is currently presiding the Central European Defence Cooperation (CEDC).
The workshop was used as a platform for an exchange of lessons learned, views and ideas on improving military mobility in a situation of the evacuation of military and civilian personnel from missions and operations in the event of a COVID-19 infection. Its aim was to better address shortfalls and gaps of national and international policies, procedures and practices in the field of the military mobility with particular focus on national operational aspects and decision-making processes referring to legal, administrative and procedural constraints.
The workshop was co-organized by Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Slovenia and the Centre for European Perspective in the framework of the Central European Defence Cooperation (CEDC).
9. 12. 2020 | PR
With the current COVID-19 situation, the ‘new normality’ of project kick-offs is going virtual. And that is exactly what D-Care Labs project, where CEP is a project partner, did on the 20th October 2020.
With more than 180 people attending the virtual kick-off in a beautiful 3D environment created by a Serbian start-up CollectiVibe, the D-Care Labs event began with the presentation of the vision of D-Care Labs project by Mr André Peters, representative of the lead partner Diakonie Baden and a video address by Ms Theresa Schopper, State Minister responsible for policy coordination in the Baden-Württemberg State Ministry.
The participants also heard more about the Danube Transnational Programme (DTP) by Mr Marius Valentin Niculae, Project Officer at the Joint Secretariat of the DTP.
With the welcomes underway, Ms Katja Vonhoff, Project Manager at Diakonie Baden presented the activities of the DTP project and all project partners, alongside their associated partners and pawed the way for the presentation of two projects with whom D-Care Labs can learn and develop synergies – project CD Skills, presented by Ms Jasmina Dolinšek from the City of Maribor and Dr Jernej Dolinšek from University Medical Centre Maribor and project Finance4SocialChange, presented by Dr Volker Then from the University of Heidelberg.
With COVID-19 strongly affecting the activities of the project, the current pandemic was also a strong focus of the regional D-Care Labs breakout sessions, with participants discussing the problems caused by COVID-19 pandemic in the field of home care and presentations of regional lab concepts as means of problem-solving.
The second part of the event was a plenary discussion focused on the contribution of European collaboration to problem-solving in the social service sector and how European collaboration can support (inter-)regional social innovation processes.
The panel participants Ms Marie-Anne Paraskevas from Directorate General Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion at the European Commission, Ms Leonetta Pajer from the Delegation of the European Union to the Republic of Serbia, Ms Heather Roy from Eurodiacona, Mr Jörg Mirtl from Priority Area 9 »People and Skills« of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region and Mr Teo Petričević from Act Group and D-Care Labs partner Croatia spoke about their work priorities, the meaning of social innovation from their individual perspective and what possibilities they see for European collaboration on a transnational, regional or national level.
Download the press release in pdf here.
Follow D-Care Labs on the official DTP website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn or YouTube.
