This year´s development definitely caught us all by surprise. The reality of Coronavirus translated into very real restrictions on our freedom to move around, meet-up or simply to sit at the office together. This woke up many of us and made even more obvious the path that is no longer a choice, but a necessity: to act together in building inclusive communities for us all. In this article, we invite you on a journey towards inclusion, which is the topic and the long-term goal of the virtual conference Global Perspectives 2020.
Inclusion has many layers and aspects, relating to race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, economic status and many more. We can argue about the success of our communities towards it, but many marginalised groups not only in the developing world, but also in cosmopolitan cities, such as Berlin, remain neglected. We still have a lot to do, especially if we truly hope to achieve at least some of the ambitious 17 SDGs[1] during the last decade for their implementation.
The urgency and the importance of the topic put it on top of the International Civil Society Centre´s agenda. We decided to offer safe space for interaction and exchange on inclusion within the community we host. At our biggest platform for exchange, Global Perspectives, participants from around the world will explore new ideas and strategies together on how to make inclusion a fundamental part of our work towards achieving the goals, outlined in the Agenda 2030.
Our aim is to open discussions on:
- Including civil society in political processes;
- Empowering inclusion in CSO programmes;
- Creating and maintaining CSOs as diverse and inclusive organisations.
Global Perspectives is a dynamic place to be, with a diverse group of participants – civil society leaders, academics, social entrepreneurs, journalists and many more. The common theme between them all is their passion to co-create, connect and collaborate to tackle the world’s most pressing problems.
Furthermore, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Global Perspectives will be entirely a virtual experience. We will provide both the award-winning conference mobile application Whova and an interactive software to open up the possibility to dive deep into the virtual networking. With shorter sessions scheduled to accommodate different time zones, we will enable high-levels of creativity, proactive engagement and fully inclusive discussions with participants from all over the globe.
This experience sounds exciting? It truly is, and we want to invite you to be part of it! There are many possibilities for collaboration, sponsorship and tailored support. Don’t hesitate to and discover the most suitable one.
We welcome you to support our effort for sustainable inclusion now!
[1] https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld
Anna Simitchieva
Fundraising Officer
International Civil Society Centre
Anna joined the Centre as Fundraising Officer in November 2019. From Bulgaria, Anna has studied and worked in Germany, Spain, Colombia and Armenia. She gained previous fundraising experience at SODI e.V. in Berlin and in the Caucasus, when she was sent to Armenia by Bread for the World to support Women for Development as Communication for Development and Fundraising Officer for two years. Before entering the nonprofit sector, Anna worked for different (inter-)national TV stations for live news productions in Berlin for more than 5 years, among them RBB and Deutsche Welle. Anna holds a MA in Intercultural Communication Studies from the European University Viadrina in Frankurt Oder and a BA in Journalism and Communication Studies and Spanish from the Free University Berlin.
