piazza San Marco 7
38068 ROVERETO
Italy
- International/Cultural relations
- Media
- Research
Born to offer a space for debate to Italian CSOs working for peaceful coexistence in South-East Europe and advocating the EU integration of the Balkan region, since its start OBC is committed to strengthening the EU project as well as the development of a transnational public sphere.
Thus, its aims are to:
enhance the interest towards areas that 20 years after the end of the Cold war are still less known, and know each other less than EU founding members;
sensitize the media and the public at large on the role of the EU as an invaluable supranational democratic arena;
stimulate the debate on major European/international issues beyond national borders and domestic public spheres;
foster the growth of transnational relations at grassroots level, by promoting cross-border networks among civil society actors and/or media outlets;
influence policy-making and the media when addressing the issues/geographical areas OBC deals with through its policy advice.
Its audience includes: scholars and researchers; journalists; students; diplomats; local, regional and national government officials; policy-makers; practitioners of development cooperation; business people; members of the diaspora from South-East Europe and the Caucasus; tourists and travellers; people generally interested in these areas.
To achieve its mission, overtime OBC developed an action that is multi-sectoral, multilingual, transnational and cross-media, and adopts a bottom-up approach to knowledge production that combines monitoring, online information, research, policy advice, debate, public events, training.
OBC regularly covers the following topics: Human rights, minorities, gender issues, welfare; European Remembrance and conflict transformation through justice and truth; Media freedom and voices of independent journalism; Films, literature, music, art and cultural “contamination”; International relations in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea; International cooperation, cross-border activism, migration; Rural and environmental issues, sustainable development and responsible tourism in South-East Europe, Turkey and the Caucasus.
To contribute to the development of a transnational public sphere, OBC promotes and joins transnational networks. It distributes its content under a Creative Commons license and it fosters the widest circulation of its content among Italian and international media outlets, collecting hundreds of earned media every year (print, radio and TV).
Among recent OBC's special projects with a strong transnational dimension or focus, the following are to be mentioned:
TELL EUROPE TO EUROPE, aimed at animating and widening the public debate on today’s Europe and on the Europe of the future, through a wide number of diverse activities carried out in cooperation with 11 partners in Italy, Slovenia, Spain and Bulgaria
Link: http://www.balcanicaucaso.org/eng/Tell-Europe-to-Europe
CERCAVAMO LA PACE, a still ongoing research project aimed at reconstructing and analysing the important though neglected chapter of recent European history, i.e. the experience of the grassroots and the Italian solidarity and antiwar movement during the Yugoslav dissolution, in support to the Balkan fellow citizens. Link: http://www.balcanicaucaso.org/Dossier/Cercavamo-la-pace
A SAFETY NET FOR EUROPEAN JOURNALISTS, focussed on media freedom in Italy and Southeast Europe through a wide array of complementary activities aimed at exploring ways to support threatened journalists in 11 countries included Turkey, and at raising awareness of the European dimension of media freedom and pluralism.
OBC can contribute to the ALF Italian network by:
sharing expert knowledge and original content on the SEE and Caucasus region gained through its monitoring, information and research activities;
strengthening the visibility of the Network and its members among its well-established audience and online community (over 130.000 monthly visits; 15.000 followers on social media; 10.000 subscribers to its newsletters);
initiating research or training programmes focused on the South-eastern Mediterranean;
providing inputs and contacts to foster the exchange and the growth of relationships among Italian CSOs and across the Adriatic;
developing projects in cooperation with other ALF members in the field of empirical and participatory research, communication and journalistic skills, media partnership.
We already had the chance to establish cooperation with members of ALF Network in France (Courrier des Balkans is a regular partner of OBC) and in Italy, with Istituto Paralleli / Babelmed.
Joining the Network would mean for us to further enrich our perspective and work on the Euromed region, (starting from the discourse on migration and asylum for example), while strengthening our relations with partners actively engaged for the development of democracy, human rights and the intercultural dialogue across the Mediterranean.