European Week of Media and Diversity

Partnership is central to this annual media advocacy endeavour. Under OL/MCM's guidance, a variety of collaborators - NGOs, unions of journalists, schools of journalism, research institutes, media education and vocational training organisations, diversity managers from public broadcasters, programme makers, media-watch organisations, workers' unions, and community media - from across Europe work together to draw attention to the resolutions and recommendations of national bodies and efforts made by NGOs to ensure that the media fully and fairly reflect Europe's increasingly multicultural and diverse population.

Each year, a theme is chosen to orient country-specific efforts and to lend a focus to public dialogue on the representation of ethnic minority groups in the media; for instance, in 2007 (event dates: March 19-25) the slogan is "Equal Opportunities for All!". OL/MCM's strategy for spurring rich and varied expressions of this theme includes providing organisations who wish to stage a national or local event as part of the Week with: the official logo and other communication tools, free advertising space via its websites and mailing lists, and support to put participants in touch with peers working in the same area. OL/MCM also welcomes fresh ideas, and invites the proposal of initiatives either based loosely on - or completely deviating from - formats proposed in the European Week handbook (available on request).

Thus, the strategy involves not dictating certain types of events, but - rather - enabling the free development of participatory activities among each one of the organisations hailing from the dozen or so countries that are part of OL/MCM. Details about each specific initiative are available on the OL/MCM website. To highlight only a few examples, in 2007, BGZ-Berlin, as part of its project ProIntegration, arranged an experience for the young Roma community through which a group of youth will visit the multicultural radio station Radio Multikulti in Berlin as well as other media outlets. Many of the annual activities revolve around OL/MCM's digital storytelling project DigiTales, which seeks to involve and integrate people from across Europe who do not enjoy equal participation in their societies by teaching them to make video clips about their personal experiences. The DigiTales project not only intends to create new opportunities for employment, but also to awake awareness in a broader public by using the media as a tool for change. Using this project as a launching pad, as part of the 2007 Week, Mundo (in cooperation with the Finnish Human Rights League) is organising a film night revolving around the public screening of DigiTales.

Beyond reaching out to members of the public through network organisation activities like these, OL/MCM often creates reports and activities highlighting good and bad practices in an effort to expose both journalists and minority communities to new ways to promote fair and inclusive reporting on the multicultural society. For instance, seminars and roundtable meetings have been arranged to bring media professionals and public officials together with minority groups.

Rights, Diversity.