Three conferences per 2 weeks

On the border between summer and autumn I attended three conferences on different topics, and each of them was a separate surprise for me.

First, on the 20th of August, 2015, I visited the seminar "European Integration in crisis", which took place at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs. At that time it was quite new (and that's why exciting) for me to be surrounded by numerous local politicians and to watch and listen live (not just online) speeches on serious and really global topics in terms of Europe. The seminar was in English, and there were representatives from several countries, also a person who represents Sweden at the European Parliament. It was also quite useful to see how different the speakers were in terms of views and values and how it impacted the overall seminar atmosphere.




Then, on the 2nd of September, 2015, I took part at the meeting of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Network, that was organized by ForumSYD and was held at their office. I was really nervous before the visit, because it had to be the first for me in the Swedish language (which I had learned only for 6 months by myself by this date), and because I knew that my Hosting and Sending organizations were working on projects for ForumSYD and I was in some terms the "face" of these organizations, so even unconsciously could affect the organizations' image.
However, the atmosphere was surprisingly very warm, cozy and even homelike, people were friendly and my first presentation about myself (in Swedish) was successful and understandable by others. :)
I was surprised to see so many Swedish organizations, that work with Eastern Partnership countries, including Belarus. The event went very well, and as a result of it the 2nd Swedish organization, that I represented at the meeting, Sveriges Belarusier, was invited to take part in the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Network.


On the next day, 3rd of September, 2015, there was a conference at Europahuset about the new European grant programs. It was also in Swedish, however, the vocabulary was pretty understandable because of the previous 6 months of reading and listening a lot on the topic, so I could make notes, that later presented at Framtidståget's project department. The conference covered three main programs: Erasmus+, "Kreativa Europa" and "Europa för medborgarna" ("Europe for citizens").