The Borderless People conference is a joint initiative of the Villa Decius Association in Kraków and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Office in Poland. It is a part of the most prestigious cycle of annual conferences devoted to the Idea of Freedom organised by the Villa Decius Association since 2005. The Borderless People conference will gather an international group of leading intellectuals, politicians and recognized experts who will present and analyze the interactions between politics and human rights. It will offer a space for reflection and provision of knowledge, and become a forum for open discussion sessions with representatives of academic and cultural milieux, NGOs, public administration and media. If authorized by the conference experts, the debates will be documented in both Polish and English.
The special event of the conference will be the 8th edition of the Polish Prize of Sergio Vieira de Mello (UN High Commissioner for Human Rights 2002-2003) which will be granted to a person and a non-governmental organisation for their efforts in building peaceful cohabitation of communities, religions and cultures. Previous Laureates include: Tadeusz Mazowiecki (Poland), The Memorial Association (Russia), Fatos Lubonja (Albania), Aleksandr Milinkiewicz (Belarus), United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq, and Nagy El-Khoury and Mohammad al-Nokkari (Lebanon).
The conference will close with the ceremony of signing the Agreement between the President of Krakow and ICORN, the International Cities for Refuge Network, which will inaugurate programme of residencies for writers in exile and Krakow will become the first city in the Central-Eastern Europe to host persecuted writers from all over the world.
The programme of the conference combines intellectual contributions from internationally recognised public figures and outstanding experts with debates and discussion sessions open to representatives of academic, political and cultural circles, NGOs, public administration, and the media.
Participation in the conference is free of charge. Application is mandatory (we gather applications till October 7th).
Project manager:
Jadwiga Figiel-Stoch jaga@villa.org.pl
Katarzyna Renes kasiarenes@villa.org.pl
Honorary patronage:
- Ambassador of the Federative Republic of Brazil to Poland
- Ambassador of the Kingdom of Sweden to Poland
- United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
