Our Institute had the honour to participate, Friday, October 28, 2016, at the NGO’s Forum, an event held at Casa Universitarilor in Cluj-Napoca. The forum was organized by the Francophone Business Club from Cluj in partnership with the Honorary Consulate of France in Cluj, the French Cultural Institute, the Dutch Business Club in Cluj, the British-Romanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Cluj-Napoca City Hall, and Babeș-Bolyai University. The event included round-table discussions and workshops addressed mainly to the foreign community, NGOs, and companies.
The primary mission of the event was to create a meeting point between the foreign community, NGOs and companies, and to facilitate the exchange of ideas and values between them through workshops, roundtable debates and visits to each NGO stands.
The expected objectives include:
- the integration of foreign civil society in Cluj through volunteering;
- creating a space for dialogue and meeting between companies and non-governmental organizations;
- strengthening civil society
- promoting multiculturalism through the sharing of values.
At the opening the following took the floor: the Honorary Consul of France in Cluj, Mr. Pascal Fesneau, the Honorary Consul of the Kingdom of Netherlands in Cluj, Mr. Wouter Reijers; Cooperation Attaché of the French Embassy in Romania, Mr. Stephane Cesari; president of the British-Romanian Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Shajjad Rizvi; the Mayor of Cluj-Napoca, Mr. Emil Boc; the vice-rector of Babeș-Bolyai University, prof. univ. dr. Mihaela Luțaș, and they gave the start of the 2nd edition of the NGOs Forum.
Actual activities of the Forum consisted of visits to the stands by NGOs and public officials in the main hall, Foaier and parallel workshops were held by some NGOs present. To mention some of them:
- “How do you take care of your house?” organized by the Habitat for Humanity;
- “Tour Guide Workshop” – Cluj Guided Tours;
- “Creative writing studio” – Studio Education Association.
There were also roundtables held on various topics specific to the event and open to the public, which took place in the Club room. Each of the three sessions of presentations and debates had a specific topic:
– professionalization of NGOs;
– NGOs in the heart of society;
– Corporate Social Responsibility, moderated by the Honorary Consul of France in Cluj, Mr. Pascal Fesneau.
Thus, our Institute, as a participant, had a promotional stand where we interacted with the public, developed a media project and held a round table on NGO’s Academy.
Through the temporary stand in the Foaier room, we shared Institute’s vision and mission to visitors such as young people, interested personsand other NGOs who gave us positive feedback and showed interest in future collaborations.
MBI has also developed within the Forum, its media project – a form of implementation of its mission: to take expertise from high value peoplethrough the interview method, audio and video recorded. In the project participated: Mario de Mezzo, member of the Board of Habitat for Humanity and Communication and CSR Director at Holzindustrie Schweighofer Romania; the Honorary Consul of France in Cluj, Pascal Fesneau; Shazzad Rizvi, president of the British-Romanian Chamber of Commerce and founder of Little People Association; Stephane Cesari, Cooperation Attaché of the French Embassy in Romania and Benoit Bavouset, director of the French Cultural Institute in Cluj. They gave us their own perspective on some of the issues raised:
- the importance of multiculturalism;
- positive and negative effects of multiculturalism;
- professional multiculturalism;
- how to develop better society, on which segments can occur;
- recommendations for environmental NGOs in Romania;
- some recommendations for our Institute to be better adapted to the needs of society. For information about our proposed project discussed during our roundtable, please read our article on http://mcb-institute.org/component/content/article/165-ngos-school (aici va fi pus în loc linkul către pagina de pe acest nou site unde este descrisă propunerea privind o Academie/Școală a ONG-urilor)
The event that MBI had the opportunity to participate represented a major step along the road to achieving goals, but also extra confidence for us to carry out the mission: to intermediate between the multicultural value elite and civil society, thereby contributing to the general welfare of the community.
http://mcb-institute.org/component/content/article/36-primaria/159-ngos-forum