Ukraine - Iom Uses Social Networking Platform and "Living Library" to Promote Cultural Awareness and Tolerance

Iom Ukraine has launched a new project aimed at promoting multiculturalism in Ukraine via a social networking platform. The "Citizen of the World" project (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=112443798769327) invites Facebook users to participate in a photography competition spotlighting cultural diversity.

Two weeks after creation of the Facebook group, 268 people from 40 countries have joined, and 85 photographs have been posted illustrating 23 different cultures and covering a wide range of subjects. As new members join the group and post their photographs, existing group members are able to check the page and see what ’cultural diversity’ means for different people around the world.

Participants can choose to either post their pictures on a group "wall" to be judged by other members, or can send submissions to IOM for assessment by a panel of judges.

Contestants mailing submissions to kiev.diversity@iom.int can win the chance to have their photographs displayed at mobile photography exhibitions to be held at "Living Library" events in twelve different cities across Ukraine.

Under the "Living Library" concept, individuals from diverse ethnic backgrounds and representatives of national minorities serve as human reference books, where Ukrainian high school and University students are invited to "read" their histories.

The Library events, which are supported by IOM 1035 facility funds, serve as a tool for opening dialogue between people of different backgrounds and form part of the "Diversity Initiative" project, (http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/diversity-initiative-fostering-cultural-understanding-and-cooperation-ukraine), an information exchange network co-chaired by IOM and UNHCR and including the Ukrainian Government, civil society and international organizations. The project was created in 2007 in response to violent attacks against foreigners of non-Slavic appearance in Ukraine.

For further information: International Organization for Migration