EMBASSY EVENTS 2009

New Program: “Minorities and Migration in Contemporary Europe”

28 January 2009

The U.S. Embassy in Warsaw is pleased to announce its cooperation with Humanity in Action (HIA) on the program “Minorities and Migration in Contemporary Europe.” We invite Polish and Ukrainian students to apply for participation in two programs. The first, entitled: “From Diversity to Homogeneity,” includes workshops, seminars and teamwork in Warsaw-based focus groups from June 5 to July 8 2009, with a follow-up seminar in the U.S. (autumn 2009 and winter 2010). The second program consists of seminars in New York from July 3 to August 9, 2009). Applications are available at www.humanityinaction.org and will be accepted until February 15, 2009.

These programs will bring together American and European university student leaders for five weeks of interdisciplinary inquiry into minority and human rights issues from a comparative, international perspective. The programs are designed to accomplish three main objectives:

Educate student leaders in examples of resistance to the legal and institutional abuse of minority populations;
Promote the growth and development of future decision makers through rigorous inquiry, discussion, and research;
Build a global network of present and future leaders in diverse professional fields who share the commitment to be socially responsible, protect minority rights, and serve the cause of public diplomacy.

HIA Poland Fellowship Program

The HIA Poland Fellowship Program 2009, entitled “From Diversity to Homogeneity” will be focused on the heritage of the past multicultural society, the communist legacy of the twentieth century, and its influences on the modern Polish, mainly homogeneous society. It will provide a platform for meeting, exchanging experiences in the field of human and minority rights and facilitating understand and cooperation between 21 participants: from Poland (7), Ukraine (4), Germany (3) and the US (7). Program will consist of seminars, site visits, visit to Treblinka Extermination Camp, guided field work, written and oral reports and it will be conducted in English.

Emphasis will be placed on the following issues:
The relevance of the War, Holocaust and Stalinism and their influence on the collective memories of Poles and their national identity;
Mechanisms leading to stereotypes, discrimination, and dehumanization: why some people resist to these phenomena, take actions and become heroes?
Traces of the invisible minorities’ history at the local level (mainly in contemporary Warsaw);
The place of national and ethnic minorities in the modern majority Polish society, the role of the state in developing/maintaining their identity;
The place of religion in the Polish public life and its identity building role: to what extent are the rights of the minority religions believers obeyed?
The situation of newcomers: asylum seekers, undocumented migrants, people with subsidiary forms of protection;
The rights of women in the private and public spheres of life (domestic violence, discrimination on the labor market, trafficking in human beings, reproductive rights);
A life in the closet and out: the situation of homosexuals in Poland;
Limits of solidarity: is the Polish society enabling or disabling a ‘normal’ life of the disabled?
Human rights in the Polish foreign policy: dialogue between Poland and its allies in the EU and NATO on the situation in the East (e. g. in Georgia or Ukraine);
The domestic system of human rights protection: the role of the state, NGOs & IOs and the media.

Deadline: February 15, 2009
Applications available on-line at www.humanityinaction.org