News from the Slovak NGDO Platform

Global Education Week 2014 in Slovakia: Food Security Edition 
A Europe-wide Global Education Week took place from 15th and 23rd November 2014. The topic discussed during this year’s events was food security, sovereignty and self-sufficiency. Slovak edition of the Global Education Week encompassed a number of interesting activities. University lectures were delivered by a renowned analytic of global challenges Juraj Mesík, along with food sovereignty academic Katarína Juríková. The Slovak NGDO Platform that organized the Week in Slovakia also cooperated with Adela Banášová, a fan favourite of Slovak TV and radio audiences, in preparing a panel discussion debating local grown initiatives spreading the ideas of food sovereignty.
On 22nd November a group of around 40 people went for a public critical mass bike-ride with check points at the most important local food markets in the city of Bratislava. The bike-ride ended in the biggest and oldest interior marketplace in the city – Stará tržnica, which has been revived only in the recent years by local activists. Thereafter the final discussion with local farmers took place. Other interesting discussions, film screenings, workshops and debates took place in different regions of the country organised for students and wider public, most of all spreading one particularly important message: ŽI FÉR (for a fair and just world).

Photo credits: Slovak NGDO Platform. Participants of the bike-ride.

Pre-Christmas Breakfast with Journalists 
On 11th December 2014 The Slovak NGDO Platform organised breakfast for journalists. The event was organised to introduce the upcoming European Development Year 2015 and present its aims and main topics that will be discussed. The Slovak NDGO Platform informed about prepared activities within the EYD 2015 and presented the opportunities for journalists, including the possibility to apply for a field trip to African or Asian countries. The Platform presented European AidWatch report launched in Paris in November 2014,
as well as the Slovak AidWatch report for the previous year. One of the important areas discussed during the European Year for Development will be policy coherence for development and the campaign of the Platform ŽI FÉR for a life in a fairer world. The Slovak NDGO Platform presented a publication prepared for the media and for NGOs entitled “When one hand gives and the other one takes back”. The brochure focuses on several issues related to the policy coherence for development. Around 14 journalists attended the breakfast. Some of them did interviews on spot and published media outcomes. The Platform hopes to strengthen the cooperation with them during 2015, the European Year for Development.


Information provided by Andrea Girmanova, Slovak NGDO Platform