Međunarodni seminar „Interkulturalni i intereligijski dijalog mladih“ održao se od 25. do 30. kolovoza 2008. godine u Biogradu na Moru u hotelu Albamaris. Na seminaru je sudjelovalo 36 sudionika iz 6 europskih zemalja: Hrvatske, Bosne i Hercegovine, Makedonije, Češke, Poljske i Italije.

Rad tijekom seminara bio je podijeljen na dva dijela: prijepodnevni zajednički rad kroz predavanja i radionice, dok se poslijepodnevni rad odvijao u međunarodnim skupinama. Predavanja za mlade održali su prof. Elvi Piršl sa Sveučilišta Juraj Dobrila u Puli i prof. Mila Mesić s Filozofskog fakulteta Sveučilišta u Zagrebu. Mladi sudionici su pokazali iznimnu zainteresiranost za predavanja „Culture i različnost“ profesorice Piršl, te „Migracije u svijetu“ profesora Mesića.

Sudionici su bili podijeljeni u 5 skupina: radijska skupina, filmska skupina, novinarska skupina, skupina „Mirotvorci“, skupina „Grafiti“; tijekom 5 dana sudionici su izradili postere, plakate, zastave, crteže, dvadeset minutnu radijsku emisiju, film, reklamu i TV prezentaciju, te novine koji su prezentirani na glavnom gradskom trgu u Biogradu. Sudionici seminara pripremili su i kviz za građane s pitanjima o 6 država sudionica semianra. Građane su nagrađivali knjigama i slatkišima.

Rezultat rada filmske skupine kratki je film Zbunjujući pozdravi (engl. Confusing Greetings).

A short view of the Seminar by Isabela Musić, participant from Croatia:
Being a participant on an international seminar is a magnificent
opportunity for young people to upgrade old and open new chapters of
their knowledge. Factual knowledge is important in everyday life, but
unfortunately it is often only form of knowledge in school systems.International dialogue promotes emotional, social and religious
knowledge, which is also a part of life in a developed environment.
Even it doesn’t seams like we use it as much as we use facts, this
kind of a knowledge makes us satisfied and successful in every phase
of our life.
One of the aims of this seminar was breaking of borders between
nations and religions. It is the most common reason why people have no
healthy communications inside and outside of their community.
Partnership between schools, parents and religious groups (together
with governmental and non-governmental organizations) should offer a
solution. They should become able to start rising new generations
which won’t use prejudice and stereotypes to describe their society.
During five days in Biograd we’ve connected youth from six countries:
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Italy, Macedonia, Czech Republic and Croatia.
It was also a meeting of different religions, so we’ve had catholic,
orthodox and Muslim religion. Croatia tries to insure equal treatment
for everybody, because it’s one of the main characteristics of modern
countries whose criteria we want to accomplish.
Every morning we had meeting with all leaders and participants. We’ve
started days with icebreakers and continue it through workshops. These methods which
will help in developing democratic views and values important for
living in a conformity with human rights.
One of the information sources were lectures of our guests Ms. Elvi
Piršl and Mr. Milan Mesić. First day Ms. Pirsl showed us a
presentation about prejudices and stereotypes. These appearance lead
to discrimination and it stops quality progress. We want to help in
creating personality of our children, students or participants and
teach them which values they should follow. In spite of that, it’s
important for everyone to understand differences between people, their
opinions and attitudes. No matter how different we are, we are at the
same all equal human beings with equal rights. Tolerance is the key
word if we want to make it possible.
National minorities are part of each nation. Today, most of people
migrate because they want better life conditions, respecting of their
human rights and freedom or maybe more secure place for living. Mr.
Milan Mesic has explained what migrations actually are and showed us
that we are all migrants somehow. We often call all migrants refugees
which are not correct. We learned differences between immigrants and
refugees.
Besides these contents, we’ve organized creative workshops. There were
five workshops and they were international.
First was the Movie workshop. Their task was to invent and record short movie in thematic field of Interculturalism. They showed the varietyof cultures trough some everyday things. Actors were: Daniela Vrdoljak
(Croatia), Boban Docevski (Macedonia), Eron Beluli (Macedonia), Marija
Jovanovska (Macedonia) and Amir Mujkić (Bosnia and Herzegovina).
Technical support was David Tomić and Ozren Martinović from Croatia.
Artists joined to Grafitti group. They were making some grafitts and
smaller paintings. Coulores were presenting feelings of participants
and sending message of peace. Group prepared performance in one
of the squares in town. Citizens have answers some questions and got
therewards.As I mentioned before peace was one of the main themes, so we decided
to dedicate one workshop to people who promote peace and human rights.
This group made some posters and showed them during the public
presentation.Radio workshop consisted of six persons whose aim was to record a 30min long radio
show about inter cultural and interreligious dialogue. They
collaborated with Radio Biograd which was very helpful by giving
professional advices.

Finally the newspaper group has made a newspaper. It’s a short
description about all these activities and seminar generally.

During the seminar we’ve had some free time for swimming, sightseeing
of Biograd and hanging out with others participants. We can surely say
that we learn lots of useful things and find out something which
crosses borders of our country. It not over now, because we have new
friends from Europe and big plans for next seminar in Croatia..