EUKN - Netherlands - FORUM - centre of expertise on multicultural development

FORUM - centre of expertise on multicultural development

Introduction

FORUM is a national centre of expertise in the field of multicultural development. The organisation advocates a society in which people from various communities live together as fully recognized citizens. It offers services and products that can be put to use in the cultivation of shared citizenship and the development of multicultural competence.

Problem

Both politicians and the public are criticising the previously implemented policy aimed at cultural differences. There is a tendency to reduce criticism of society to a criticism of the multicultural character of society as a whole, or even to a criticism of ethnic minorities as such. In this position, new migrants are considered as the source of social problems, and the preceding governments are accused of having ignored the consequences of welcoming immigrants without providing proper integration facilities. In this debate it is argued that prior official policies have marginalised immigrants instead of facilitating their integration.

Description

The centre acts at both the policy and practical level in different fields, including:

Youth and Public Safety;
Religion, Empowerment and Identity Development;
Integration and Education;
Social Cohesion;
Diversity Policy;
Legal Issues.

One key role of FORUM is to follow and analyse positive and negative developments in society, organise targeted interventions, and put issues on the public agenda. FORUM has a vast network of contacts, acting both as information source and as contributors to its activities and objectives.

Approach

The key objectives of FORUM are:

Initiative: to initiate and intervene in order to facilitate and give direction to the aim of shared citizenship. This is done through cooperation, the formation of networks and the organisation of debates on diversity management, the participation of minorities, or contrasting segregation.
Knowledge: the collection, improvement and dissemination of knowledge. FORUM aims to commission research and cooperate with research bodies and institutions. It also aims to make existing knowledge accessible, and finally to form a platform for the exchange of methods applied in the field.
Communication: to communicate its analyses and visions of society and policy processes. Transfer of knowledge and public statements form a fundamental part of the activities. This includes bringing people who work in the field into contact with each other. This is done on the basis of their expertise and involvement, with the aim of exchanging information through expert meetings, digital discussion groups, workshops, conferences, newsletters, and structural, innovative think tanks.

Results

Among the results of FORUM there are a range of projects and researches on the above mentioned subjects. They can be found on their website (see the links section).

Contact info

FORUM
Mr R. Sohilait (Project leader), tel. +31 30 2974334

Project start date

Links

For more information, please visit the FORUM website

Document type

case

Themes

Urban Policy > Social inclusion & integration > Integration of social groups

Keywords

Ethnic minorities