Young Alliance of Civilizations Forum

UNA-Spain together with the IEMed (Mediterranean European Institute) and the Euro-Mediterranean Foundation Anna Lindh, organized in Barcelona, from the 19th to the 21st October, the “Euro-Mediterranean Young Alliance of Civilizations Forum”. The idea was to involve young people in the Alliance of Civilizations; thus, there were more than 100 young people, who belonged to different youth and university associations, coming from the Mediterranean area and from other European countries. The opening ceremony was in the hotel Pòdium in Barcelona; and the main lecture was given by Shamil Idriss, Alliance High-Level Group Secretary manager. That afternoon the workshops started; there were different workshops divided into the Alliance subjects: Inmigration, Youth, Education, Genre and Media. All the workshops were developed during the next three days and generated a intense debate. So, from each of them came up some conclusions which all together created the Final Declaration; this one was given to the Alliance of Civilizations High-Level Group, and it was included in the final report that the Group presented to the United Nations general secretariat and to the Spanish Government. In fact, Federico Mayor Zaragoza, Alliance of Civilizations High-Level Group cochairman; sent a message to the young people that participated in the Forum congratulating them on the hard work done.


Alliance of Civilizations Ad-Hoc Committee Special Meeting

The 23rd and 24th October 2006, within the framework of the prestigious Casa Asia East-West Dialogue, UNA-Spain carried out an extraordinary meeting of the Catalonia Model United Nations Alliance of Civilizations Ad-Hoc Committee. Forty European students participated in the assembly, most of them had also taken part of the C’MUN, holded by the UNA-Spain in May.

The main objective of this complementary activity of the Young Alliance of Civilizations Euro-Mediterranean Forum, was to elaborate a plan of action with some concrete proposals in all the areas: Education, Genre, Inmigration and Media; in order to be later transmited to the Alliance of Civilizations High-Level Group.

Each subject was discussed in a round table by a different group of young people. The discussions were finished by the 2nd day in the morning; later, each group presented its conclusions to the other participants, who made questions and gave new ideas. Thus, with the participation of all the groups, the final conclusions were enriched and they could elaborate the final report.

The plan of action was presented and explained in depth in the table named The young voice in the Allianze of Civilizations, from the Casa Asia East-Weast Dialogue. Next, an Ah-Hoc Committee delegation, got the opportunity to hand in the document to Federico Mayor Zaragoza, Alliance of Civilizations High-Level Group co-site director. Mr. Mayor Zaragoza declared that he was really satisfied with the work done by these young people, and he ensured that the document would be included as a Civil Society contribution in the final report handed in by the High-Level Group to the United Nations Secretary-General.

To see the Plan of Action, click in here.