Programmes

DiverCity, Urban Leadership, Communities: Participation, Dialogue and Cooperation

Our cities are growing: more and more people at home and abroad are moving to urban living spaces in search of work, education, a wide range of cultural activities and personal and professional prospects. Urbanity was once a key parameter in the modernisation and development of societies. Today, mobility and immigration, demographic changes and socio-economic differences pose increasing challenges to traditional structures and infrastructures and call for new ideas and projects to shape the multiple, complex urban reality. Finding access to education and work and thus prosperity, experiencing democratic co-determination and working for social peace and security in cultural, linguistic and religious diversity: Vienna, the Austrian federal states and various municipalities have numerous good experiences and examples to offer, because concepts for diversity, equal treatment, integration and anti-discrimination are also needed in non-urban areas.

At the same time, an international perspective created through exchange opens up new insights into urban coexistence, social space development and community building. The focus is on the transfer of locally anchored but transferable approaches to neighbourhood work, citizen participation and intercultural cooperation. The aim is to further develop existing projects, identify new opportunities for cooperation and embed innovative practices in the local context. This not only promotes individual skills development, but also creates development potential for urban resilience, social cohesion and transcultural learning processes.

„Peace at School“: Conflict Prevention And Peacebuilding With Schools

Many of our guests at the Forum come from countries and regions that are dramatically affected by conflicts, wars and other challenges: Economic crises, poverty, lack of education, climate change, migration, human rights violations, unequal treatment, dysfunctional democracies or authoritarian regimes. What do they experience? What solutions do they have in the context of diversity and anti-discrimination, what strategies do they have to combat racism and anti-Semitism, fundamentalism and radicalisation, what cooperation for peace and development works and what can we learn from each other? We take our guests to schools and educational institutions - to discuss and work with pupils and/or teachers on site. We create formats by arrangement: lectures followed by discussions, workshops, thematic tours, further projects for implementation (e.g. in the area of media skills and social media).

Dialogue Residencies

International experts who are among the Austria's multilateral priority topics are supervised by the Bruno Kreisky Forum, used in international conferences and workshops in Vienna and networked with Austrian and European institutions and experts. The aim is to promote exchange, mutual knowledge transfer and, above all, long-term international, academic, diplomatic and political co-operation. An expert from the African Union on the topic of UNSCR 1325 „Women, Peace and Security“ is currently a guest at the Bruno Kreisky Forum with the support of the Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs (BMEIA).

If you are interested in the Dialogue Residency Programme, please send your enquiry to bichl@kreisky-forum.org