Elevating Equality Through Dialogue and Global Networks
The Glac Community at the European Development Days 2019
The European Development Days 2019 were a great opportunity for our community members to get to know each other, reunite and expand their own professional networks. This year 8500 guests attended the event in Brussels that brings together leading institutions and individuals from the development sector every year. Speakers included Paulette Lenert, Tony Blair, Kailash Satyarthi, Macky Sall and many more.
We were lucky that GLAC’s stand “Elevating Equality Through Dialogue and Global Networks” was located near the entrance area so that a constant stream of visitors was coming through. People were attracted by the fantastic backdrop our tech- and design-specialist in the team, Ramses Bermudez, had created and which reflected the network approach to the SDGs that the GLAC stands for. Of course, our GLAC quiz and the prospect of winning a 100% biodegradable coffee cup and the large fruit baskets we had on the table were eye catchers as well!
Six community members engaged with EDD participants and shared their experiences from the Migration Lab, the Transforming Leadership Lab, the Global Diplomacy Lab and the Power of Diversity Lab. The individual engagement and motivation of all six was astonishing. Katharina Miller who is an experienced corporate and human rights lawyer at 3ccompliance and passionate for gender equality has been appointed GLAC Ambassador Europe. Despite her assignment as an observer to the European Commission during the EDD week in June, she made time to come to the stand. She invited the other community members to join the European network and reunite in a European meeting later this year. “GLAC is not a programme, it’s on us to get together and find solutions towards reaching the goals of the agenda 2030,” she said. Besides, she was there to answer questions on the Transforming Leadership Dialogue.
Bikash Chowdhury Barua, chairperson of BASUG, a Dutch NGO in the field of diaspora and development with a focus on Bangladesh and Nepal, travelled from The Hague to join us. He turned out to be an excellent photographer!
Collective Action at the GLAC stand
Also from the Migration Lab family, Celeste Ugochukwu, director of the African Foundation for Migration and Development (AFMD) in Bern and Mohamed Ali, founder of ADEVA (African European Development Agency) living in Sweden, engaged visitors in conversations about GLAC’s holistic approach. Even though Mohamed had not heard about GLACs presence at the EDDs until one day before, he was keen to join us behind the counter and give some time to the visitors. Celeste has a vision for the community to grow and expand. He says, “for it to be sustainable, there must be a continuity, a concretization and transformation of the conversation into daily life experience through the implementation of life touching proposals”.
Amarachi Igboegwu is equally keen to explore the possibilities of the GLAC community and bring in her knowledge as a learning strategist and researcher of behavior change communication and lifelong learning. As a member of the Global Diplomacy Lab it was her first time to get to know participants from other dialogues.
Finally yet importantly, we had with us Allen Asiimwe, Chief Technical Officer at TradeMark East Africa, and GLAC Ambassador Africa. Allen spoke to the visitors about the Power of Diversity and her experience from twenty years as a development advisor. Like Katharina she is a lawyer and the two ladies were keen to meet and discuss future plans. As Katharina was held up in her work with the European Commission, the final meeting of our GLAC Ambassador ladies happened after the stands had been packed up, all panels were closed and most people were already on their way home.
"For a community to be sustainable, there must be a continuity, a concretization and transformation of the conversation into daily life experience through the implementation of life touching proposals”.
Celeste Ugochukwu