9 November 2017 - 16.45 / 18.00 - Palais de l'Europe, Rooms 1 and 5

Interpretation: FR/EN

 Deferred transmission - Room 1

 Deferred transmission - Room 5

Storytelling

Storytelling can be defined as the conveying of events in words, sound or images. The “storytellers” speak about personal events in their life, related to a given topic. Storytelling is a means for sharing and interpreting experiences. Stories are universal in that they can bridge cultural, linguistic and age-related divides.

moderator - room 1
NISTOR Camelia

Camelia NISTOR

Freelance trainer, coach and consultant

Romania

Camelia Nistor works as a freelance trainer, coach and consultant in international projects world-wide. Having a background as a Human Rights activist she has been involved in the youth policy development with the Council of Europe as well as anti-discrimination campaigns and was part of the co-founding of the No Hate Speech Movement (www.nohatespeechmovement.org). She works with youth workers and policy makers on issues related with inclusion, non-formal education, anti-racism and active participation. Currently living in Romania, she loves to spend her free time reading, cooking recipes from around the world and creating herbal skin remedies.

speakers - room 1
SAHIN USTA Leyla

Leyla ŞAHIN USTA

Member of Parliament, Turkey, AKP

Turkey

She was born on the 8th of March 1973 in İstanbul.  Leyla Şahin Usta finished her primary, secondary and college education also there. She emerged the best high school graduation student and started to study medicine in 1993 at the Uludağ University in Bursa. Because of her great success, she transferred her education to Cerrahpaşa University in Istanbul and continued her education. During the headscarf problems in 1999 she had to move to Vienna in order to continue her medical study. Leyla Şahin Usta finished her study of medicine in 2003 at the University of Vienna. In 2007 she turned back to Turkey. Since 1998 she actively takes part of civil society organizations. Until February of 2015 she worked as a doctor. Usta was elected as member of parliament from Konya for the 25th and 26th legislature. She speaks fluency German and good English. Now, she is married and mother of two children.  

SYJUCO Miguel

Miguel SYJUCO

Author and activist

Philippines

Miguel Syjuco, a contributing opinion writer of the International New York Times, is a novelist, journalist, and university professor from the Philippines. His debut novel "Ilustrado" was a NY Times Notable Book of 2010 as well as the winner of the Man Asian Literary Prize, the Hugh MacLennan Prize, the Palanca Award, and the Filipino Readers' Choice Award. Currently an Assistant Professor of Practice, Literature, and Creative Writing at New York University Abu Dhabi, Mr. Syjuco has worked on staff for the Montreal Gazette and the Independent Weekly in Adelaide, Australia. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Guardian, Time, Newsweek, the International Herald Tribune, the Globe & Mail, the BBC, the CBC, Inside Higher Ed, and many others. Born in Manila, Mr. Syjuco received a B.A. in English Literature from the Ateneo de Manila University, an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Columbia University, a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Adelaide, and was a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University. Both his fiction and non-fiction focus on politics, history, inequality, cultural identity, literature, and formal experimentation. 

VAN BAWI MANG Salai David

Salai David VAN BAWI MANG

Founder of the Ethnic Youths Development Center (EYDC)

Burma

Salai David St Van Bawi Mang is a young activist and leader from Myanmar/Burma and is part of the minority ethnic group called Chin Ethnic. He has been engaged with youth development and civil society sectors since 2012 and currently is involved in the peace and national dialogues process in Myanmar. He founded the Ethnic Youths Development Center (EYDC) in 2013, an organization focused on those who lack opportunities and marginalized from society. The organization emphasized work with minority ethnic young people and who want to contribute to their communities. Salai was engaged with many young people and who want to contribute to their communities.  Salai was engaged with many parts of the youth development and democratic sector and participated in the democratic transition of Myanmar/Burma. He is the Liberty and Leadership Fellows (President George W. Bush Institute) and the Deboer Fellows ( The DeBoer Foundation).

moderator - room 5
PADDISSON Nik

Nik PADDISON

Independent freelance trainer/writer/consultant/copy editor in the European youth field

United Kingdom

Nik is a full time independent freelance trainer/writer/consultant/copy editor in the European youth field. He has a background as a youth worker from the UK. Nik specialises in the training of youth workers and trainers. He also works on Human Rights, peace building, work with Roma young people, refugee issues, and developments in non-formal learning - creating educational games, activities, theories... He lives by the sea in Montenegro, trying to live a more Mediterranean lifestyle, but that North European mentality keeps getting in the way! Having long breakfasts with a book in the sun, growing herbs (the legal variety) and playing board games are his main hobbies when at home.

speakers - room 5
CUESTA MORÚA Manuel

Manuel CUESTA MORÚA

Human Rights Activist

Cuba

Born and raised in La Havana. Currently, along with other organizations and citizens, coordinates the New Country Platform, a civic plural alternative who seeks to refound the nation's project and the Cuban political model. Manuel Cuesta also coordinates, together with other activists, the Consensus Constitutional Project that has achieved the participation of most of the pro-democracy, civic and human rights organizations. He is member of the Citizens Committee for Racial Integration and has led the project Zero Violence. He is founder, together with other representatives from all of Latin America, the regional platform Solidaridad Democrática Latinoamericana, which seeks to build an America of Citizens, as a permanent arena for the defense and promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

JEFFERS Nathalie

Nathalie JEFFERS

Educator, activist and organiser with Black Lives Matter

United Kingdom

Natalie Jeffers, is an educator, activist & organiser with BLMUK - a network of radical anti-racist/anti austerity organisers, who are strategic diasporic partners to the BLM Network. Natalie is the director of Matters of the Earth - an international collective that builds strategy, practice and tools to transform. Their work creates intersectional consciousness and action, around issues concerning: anti-blackness; gender equity; LGBQTI+ rights; mental health; decoloniality; and climate change.

SHEVCHENKO Inna

Inna SHEVCHENKO

FEMEN activist

Ukraine

Inna Shevchenko is award winning activist and leader of International women's movement FEMEN. She was kidnapped and threatened by the Belarus KGB in 2011 and was given political asylum in France after facing persecutions in Ukraine. In December 2012, the French magazine Madame Figaro included Shevchenko in its list of the world's top 20 iconic women of the year. In July 2013, Shevchenko was the main inspiration for a new French stamp depicting Marianne. Shevchenko is a speaker at conferences and a columnist for the international press. She was a speaker at a debate on freedom of speech in Copenhagen on 14 February 2015 with cartoonist Lars Vilks. She was speaking about an illusion that in Western Europe people can fully enjoy freedom of speech when a terrorist opened fire in the lobby of the cultural centre, where the debate took place. Surviving the attack, Shevchenko later said, "Liberal voices should be louder than Kalashnikovs". Shevchenko  has published Anatomie de l'oppression with Pauline Hillier in Editions du Seuil (2017).