Advocacy on Humanitarian Aid and response to influx of refugees in Slovenia and other activities of SLOGA

Over the last months SLOGA is intensively involved in a dialogue with different government officials on the topics of humanitarian aid and Slovenian capacity for a response to an influx of refugees moving on the so called “Western Balkans route”. SLOGA participated in the consultations on the preparation of Guidelines on international humanitarian assistance of Republic of Slovenia in July 2015. The meeting was aimed at exchanging views and suggestions regarding the content of the Guidelines, which should be prepared by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the coming months. Apart from that a lot of efforts were concentrated on the question of the growing refugee crisis in the wider region. SLOGA is very active coordinating a huge coalition of NGO’s in Slovenia, which is responding to the refugee crisis in terms of advocacy, planning the distribution of humanitarian aid, questions of integration etc. This coalition also sent an open letter to the Prime minister of Slovenia which sparked a direct dialogue with the Government. Operation Center was established, where a representative of SLOGA is also present. The aim of Operation Center is to coordinate response between different actors, and to share information and good practices among them. Apart from ongoing dialogue and advocacy a huge pressure on Government was also exerted before the meeting of the Council of EU for Justice and Internal Affairs.

Promoting international development cooperation and raising awareness
SLOGA intensified its efforts to promote international development cooperation to general public in Slovenia not only with its »Global Neighbour« campaign. SLOGA also organized several events which were aimed at promoting international development cooperation. Thus, several panels and group discussions (called Skuhna Talks) were organized on the topics of positive consequences of migration, gender equality and the role of youth. Aforementioned campaign and its messages were also presented and different workshops were held on several international events such as World Schools Debate Academy in Kranjska Gora, MUNSC Salient: Youth Conference on Global Matters 2015 in Ljubljana, AidWatch platform event in Serbia, and United Nations Summer School in Ljubljana. We also joined the World’s Best News project organized by Ministry of Foreign Affairs and distributed best news on development cooperation in Ljubljana. SLOGA was also present on several public events with the aim to present both the role and work of the platform and its projects as well. Therefore, SLOGA took part at Šuštarska nedelja in Tržič and Bivak festival in Ljubljana. Part of SLOGA’s efforts there were also to gather signatures for petition for a European Year of Social and Solidarity Economy 2018 as a part of Challenging the Crisis campaign.

LADDER Activities 
SLOGA took part in training in Zagreb, held between 21 and 24 July, which offered the participants a deeper insight into the concept DEAR and connected it with the existing development issues. In the end everything was combined in creation of a DEAR strategy. The aim of LADDER (Local Authorities as Drivers for Development Education and Awareness Raising) project is to improve the functioning of local authorities in the policy areas of global learning and raising awareness, with special emphasis on neighboring EU Member States. Within LADDER project SLOGA also contributed to a joint call to EU ministers before the meeting of the Council of EU for Justice and Internal Affairs, which called for an urgent, comprehensive, coordinated and humane response to the migration crisis in the European Union and its neighborhood. Information provided by Adriana Aralica, SLOGA