Mainstreaming social cohesion and Leadership Action for Shared Societies in the European Union.

PM Kok opened Mainstreaming social cohesion and Leadership Action for Shared Societies in the EU (Brussels 17 Nov), a CdM seminar organized with the British Council Open Cities Project and the Network of European Foundations.

The lively debate and the working groups that followed highlighted the interest of many participants and organisations to engage within the project such as the Ambassador Pavilionis, Coordinator for Lithuania’s Chairmanship of the Community of Democracies meeting (2011), Salman Shaikh, Special Representative for the Muslim West Facts Project, France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the City of Rotterdam, NEF, OSI and the Council of the EU.

Discussions helped us think through how to make the project principles and tools relevant to EU processes and debates with special focus on making the link between the shared societies project and further review and implementation of the Lisbon agenda.

Also, Club de Madrid’s program director Sean Carroll spoke to 120 educators and EU officials at the INCLUD-ED Conference (Brussels, 18 Nov), focusing on inclusive education and how to bring case-studies to the attention of leaders for specific actions; and to another audience of 150 at the Intl. Business & Leadership Forum (Brussels, 6 Nov), focusing on inclusive business practices.

All three fora allowed us to make Shared Societies principles and tools available to EU officials and civil society leaders who work on and champion social inclusion.