Session: Addressing restrictions on religion: law matters
The aim of the session is to come up with two recommendations on the topic of “freedom of religion� for the UNAOC within the scope of small group discussions. Two broader and diverse subjects attracted special attention of the group: the first topic concerning the issue of how to effectively address restrictions of religion and how to guarantee the protection of human rights as well as the freedom of religion, religious practice, faith and spirituality; the second topic dealing with the role of education at an early stage to promote respect and to prevent conflicts caused by intolerance and ignorance towards religions, faiths, spiritualities and beliefs. Recommendation 1: We recommend the UNAOC to enforce the incorporation of ethical, religious and spiritual education, both formal and informal, from early childhood level. Recommendation 2: We recommend the UNAOC to ensure the rights of freedom of conscience, thoughts, religions, religious practice, faith, spirituality and its protection on a state and public level.
Session: Diversity of media content
Touching a variety of related topics the most important issue concerned the question on how to address and promote diversity through the media. Is a regulation by law necessary? And how does the society react on a government induced process towards diversity? The participants of the workshop reached a broad consensus that civil society integration is of utmost importance to shape the process. Some favored purely market-based concepts, whereas others promoted public incentive schemes encouraging diversity both in the overall media landscape as in content. When discussing the optimal design of national funding programs, emphasis was laid upon the concepts of market power and pressure groups’ influence in decision making.
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Recommendation 1: It is important to cultivate a plural society through the promotion and support of culturally diverse art (e.g. cinema, music, etc). Recommendation 2: The UNAOC should create a training program for minorities in journalism, art and media. Governments need to be encouraged to provide funding for minority employment in media.
Session: Integration – Diversity, multiple identity and social inclusion
Within this session, essential questions such as the role of different societal levels to help with integration, migrants‘ own possibilities to facilitate integration and the importance of language and education for integration were discussed. Issues included the translation of history books, a platform for best practices and the access of migrants to national labor markets. The discussion elaborated two recommendations: Recommendation 1: Creating polylogue between various stakeholders including civil, government, business community with an aim to enhance political and active participation of minorities in society to ensure and / or create long-term social inclusion and integration. We propose this through including migrant histories in the political discourse of host nations, by highlighting and replicating best practice outreach and affirmative programs and actions and by ensuring that outreach is comprehensive and inclusive through political campaigns/elections. Recommendation 2: To achieve a successful inclusion crossing language divides and creating a sense of community, we recommend to provide children with free education equally in their mother tongue and the main language spoken the respective region/country, create an international open source platform where migrants can share their experiences, needs and best practices to achieve mutual benefit and to guarantee equal access to quality of language education for refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants.
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Session: Living together at ease in a landscape of religions diversity and difference? Education matters! The participants worked on issues of how freedom of religion, freedom of speech and opinion
could be implemented in education. And furthermore how cross cultural dialogue and networking can raise efficiency and cooperation between stakeholders and youth. The concluding thoughts were summarized in 3 main topics: training and educating youth as equal stakeholders, integration and communication. These “buzzwords” were later transformed into the following recommendations: Recommendation 1: Member states should invest in education. Education of students and education of teachers in dealing with diversiy and tolerance should go hand in hand. Recommendation 2: Refining the relationship of youth and stakeholders is a social responsibility ensuring that stakeholders recognize communication with the youth as a necessity.
Session: Media Freedom Responsible leadership and media freedom - two key elements for democracy and diversity
During the workshop “Media Freedom” the participants developed different approaches to the meaning of responsible leadership in context of media. They pointed out that media institutions should be aware of their responsibility and the effects of their chosen agenda and words. Motivating people to participate is always a key issue to keep up or enhance democracy. The question if censorship can be legitimate was discussed vividly because more than half of the participants live in the Arab world and experience governmental censorship every day. Therefore they underlined the importance of the right of freedom of speech, implemented into the constitution, in order to guarantee a diverse world.
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Recommendation 1: Social Media has transformed media from monologue to dialogue and engages especially young people to participate in debates and social movements. It is a new way of providing and consuming information interactively. Recognizing the importance of this transformation process we recommend that the UNAOC should offer workshops to teach young leaders from transforming countries how to use social media effectively. Recommendation 2: Free access of information is a key element for high-quality media work and democracy. Being aware of that, we suggest that the UNAOC should help to establish a legal as well as an institutional framework for the availability and exchange of information. The UNAOC should encourage dialogue between governments and civil society through mutual decision-making and information systems. We recommend evaluating best practices and providing expertise to national states on this matter.
Session: New approaches on the narrative on migration
The participants within this group were elaborating thoughts and answers on major topics such as: •
benefits and costs of immigration for host countries,
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the role of policy makers, civil society and other stakeholders in shaping the narrative on migration and the contribution of the media to counter prejudices towards migrants.
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The discussion elaborated the importance of a strong cooperating network between media, government, society and the private sector. But to shap the narrative on migration in a much more positive way, the follwing recommendations should be carried out by the international community: Recommendation 1: Form a task force which includes all stakeholders - especially migrants - to develop practical solutions through a multi-perspective approach in order to depoliticize the narrative of migration. Recommendation 2: Make the path to citizenship easier.
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