Workshop on building bridges organized by the Max Van der Stoel Institute

The workshop, entitled “The Bridge: The Heart of a Community,” was organized on Friday (December 11th). It was conducted by Krzysztof Czyżewski, a well-known essayist and publisher, who is also the director of “Borderland of Arts, Cultures and Nations” in Poland. The Ambassador of Poland, H.E. Jacek Multanowski, opened the first part of the workshop.

Sharing his experience with numerous of his projects on building bridges among various communities around the world, Mr. Czyżewski explained to the students the best models of using the advantages of bridges for cooperation among the ethnic communities.

“Building bridges is permanent work. You need time. You need to reflect all the time with tolerance and even more. At the same time you need to work on building bridges as well within the communities and not only between communities,” Prof. Czyżewski remarked.

In his presentation the Director of SEEU’s Max van der Stoel Institute, Prof. Dr. Veton Latifi, said that while building bridges one must take into account the fact that bridges can connect communities but, at the same time, bridges may further polarize the rift between communities. “Much depends on the model one will work with. For connecting the communities in a multicultural setting it is preferable to craft and maintain bridges that will apply the model of coexistence or cohabitation. Then, in addition to tolerance, you will work on building mutual respect. And for that you need all the time to have sustainable dialogue among communities,” stressed Prof. Latifi.