International Student Week in Belgrade, ISWiB 2007

Practising Globalisation

After the last year's successful start, with 30 participants in three workshops on the first conference, International Student Week in Belgrade will gather 150 students from all European universities this summer


By WAVE Editorial Team
from Belgrade, SERBIA


The second International Student Week inBelgrade, ISWiB 2007 will be held from 28th June till 5th July 2007, with heading motto - "Update Local to Get Global". The organizers, students & youth organization "World Youth Wave - Serbia" from Belgrade had a hard task to choose the best applicants out of 370 from 50 different countries, and the most applications came from Turkey, then Romania and Ukraine, ex- Yugoslav republics, but also from Germany, Hungary, Poland, Norway... Participants, 150 students from whole Europe, will gather together to take active participation in workshops and panel discussions to exchange opinions and views about themost actual topics today.

- I found out about Belgrade's student week in my faculty, one of the professors sent to us an application and explained what ISWiB exactly is and I liked that very much, so I decided to apply. I hope to have possibility in Belgrade for meeting young people from different countries and for learning about other cultures. I applied to see and hear about young people abroad - explained Natalija Pešić, one of the participants from Macedonia and added: - Speaking frankly, I applied also because this International student week is exactly in - Belgrade! I expect to come back home after ISWiB with lots of new friends and experiences, and of course I am looking forward having great fun and night life.

Beside education - lectures, discussions and nine interactive workshops, the second International Student Week in Belgrade, ISWiB 2007 will offer to the guests from abroad, but also domestic students and all the people from Belgrade many cultural events. The main event of non-formal part of the week will be Country Fair in the Students Cultural Centre garden, where all the participants will have a chance to present national culture. Each country will have its own stand with different tourist brochures and papers, national food and drink, and some of them will present national music and dances. The fun will keep going with Karaoke party in different languages and the host will be radio showman Igor Brakus. The night before ISWiB & Jungle Tribe will organize together International Party in Summer Plastic club. The general sponsor of all ISWiB parties is Beck's beer!

The German embassy in Belgrade took over the patronage on ISWiB 2007 and they support the efforts of the organizers to gather students from whole Europe in the capital of Serbia. They explain that they are interested in international youth projects like this because of the fact that 80% of young people here have never travelled abroad and have no international experience. During International Student Week in Belgrade all the Serbian students will have a chance to make international friendships even staying at home, by taking part in this interesting event.

Daily newspapers "Politika" and Radio-Television B92 are the official media sponsors. Partners are also students and youth organizations - Students Union of Serbia and Green Youth Serbia, and in Media workshop moderators will be colleagues from Bosnia and Herzegovina - Youth Informative Agency from Sarajevo. German cultural centre Goethe-Institut Belgrade and British Coucil, as weel as Students Cultural Centre Belgrade are also partners in this project. Official support came from The People's Office of the President of Republic of Serbia, The National Bank of Serbia and Ministery of Education, as well as from the City of Belgrade, and some German foundations - Konrad Adenauer, Fridrich Ebert and German association for technical cooperation (GTZ) supported event. European Movement in Serbia is one of domestic non-governemntal organizations in this project.