Dear UNITED friends,
Time flies and here we are with another UNITED E-News! Many things have happened since the last newsletter and we hope you'll enjoy reading and knowing about them.
#IDAHOBIT2023 - International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia
We celebrated this year's IDAHOBIT by starting a campaign to raise awareness on the discrimination against the LGBTQI+ community and to invite people to play their prat in contrasting it. You can follow it on our Facebook and Instagram pages, so #staytuned!
The tale of Georgian Uprising!
May has also been the month we used to share the inspiring story of Activist Resilience of the Georgian Uprising of the 7th of March, which saw people, civil society and organisations stooding up against a law they found unjust and that wanted to label people as "foreign agents", a worrying tendency in many authoritarian governments and that the Georgian people managed to block, at least for now.
We had the privilege to hear this story from one of the member of our Network, Mikheil Lazginiani, Executive Director of ტოლერანტობის სამყარო – World of Tolerance NGO, who participated the protest firsthand, shared his story with us, talking about the reasons behind it, what made it a success but also the feeling of fear and uncertainty that came with such a massive protest. You can find more info about the uprising on our website and the full interview on our YouTube channel.
Do you have similar inspiring stories to share?
We would be happy to share it throughout the network! We try our best in keeping up with all the amazing work you do, but if you're interested in sharing some particular event, activity, activist practice, please do not hesitate to reach out to us at [email protected]
UNITED Delegates at the Manama conference on freedom of Expression, Religion and Belief.
Indre (Lithuania) and Martin (Slovakia) joined in fact the conference in Manama (Bahrain), to discuss freedom of Expression, Religion and Belief.
In
the framework of the “Enhanced EU-GCC political dialogue, cooperation and outreach”, the Kingdom Bahrain and the European Union have agreed to engage in a dialogue on freedom of conscience, as well as discuss the impact of climate change on these freedoms and potential responses to the rising wave of disinformation and hate speech online.
As a youth network, UNITED has supported the outreach to activists in Eastern & Northern Europe, widening the participation.
Our delegate Martin also provided expert input on the roundtable “Limits to and regulation of freedom of expression regarding cyberhate in the EU”.
In the upcoming months, working groups will be formed, and their findings and progress will lead to another meeting in Brussels later this year. Stay tuned and
#stayunited !
Remember that our Delegates & Experts program is always open!
On May 25th at 6 pm CEST we're holding the II Introductory Meeting for the Network and it's possible to participate after applying here and you could also write at [email protected] to know more 
NEWS from Projects:
R2COM Transnational Consortium Meeting in Albania
UNITED team attended the R2COM Transnational Consortium Meeting in Albania on 27-28th of April to discuss the details and next steps in the project. The project consortium had a fruitful discussion on how to implement the project to achieve the promised goals, and improve civil societies’ involvement in Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE). To know more about the R2COM project you can visit the website and our dedicated section.
REFUGIN
The REFUGIN project is a collaborative initiative to develop comprehensive training programmes and cement civil society synergies, all aimed at enhancing the integration of refugees and asylum seekers. We have just shared twithin our network he research survey for people working in the field and we're now happy to share also this nice informative video made by the project partnership. You can watch it
here and on
YouTube.
General Assembly of the EU-Russia Civil Society Forum
Talking about Experts & Delegates, Julie Ward, one of UNITED's Network Experts, will be present at the 2023 General Assembly of the EU-Russia Civil Society Forum, also running as a board member. Considering the recent decision by the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation of labeling the Forum as an "undesirable organisation“, we want to hold our presence to closely monitor the situation and to keep all our members updated about it.
20th of June Campaign is coming up!
Last but not least, June is around the corner and with it our annual campaign for World Refugee Day, pivotal for us, for our Network and for keep spreading awareness about the fatal policies of fortress Europe. This year would be particularly important as on the 30th year of its existence, our list of refugee deaths has reached an awful record of more than 50k names, fifty thousands people disappeared...so stay in touch to support this year campaign and, always, #stayunited.
