Open Estonia Foundation: May highlights

Acclaimed Russian Opposition Member and Former Dissident Bukovsky Visited Estonia
The Open Estonia Foundation, in collaboration with NGO Open Republic, hosted the acclaimed Russian writer and former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky in Estonia. Bukovsky gave a public lecture on Russian-Western relationships, met the president of Estonia, held a roundtable at the Parliament, and met former dissidents. The event drew a lot of interest from the Estonian Russian speaking community and mass media.

Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovsky is a notable former Soviet dissident, and an activist. Bukovsky was one of the first to expose the use of psychiatric imprisonment against political prisoners in the Soviet Union. He spent a total of twelve years in Soviet prisons, labor camps and in psikhushkas, forced-treatment psychiatric hospitals used by the regime as special prisons. In 2007, Bukovsky agreed to become a candidate in the Russian presidential election. He was nominated by Russian democratic opposition. The Election Commission turned down Bukovsky's application, claiming that he failed to give information on his activity as a writer when submitting documents to the Election Commision, that he was holding a British residence permit, and that he has not been living on Russian territory over the past ten years.

Belarus Photo Exhibition and Debate in North-Eastern Border Town Narva
With support from OEF, the exhibition of young Belarusian opposition activist Julia Daraschkevich opened in Narva Central Library. The photos show the daily life of Belarus, but also demonstrations and other opposition activities. Because of the latter, the exhibition would be impossible in Belarus. In Belarus, Julia works at the independent weekly paper Our World, a popular newspaper among intellectuals, which has not been closed down due to its small circulation, although its distribution channels have been cut off. At the opening, a public debate Means of Self Expression in Closed Societies was held by Russian community opinion leaders, journalist Ilja Ban and historian David Vseviov, the latter being also the ambassador of the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue in Estonia.

Young Ideas for Europe
Young Ideas for Europe is an initiative supported by the Robert Bosch foundation in collaboration with the Network of European Foundations (NEF), which aims at inspiring young people between 15 and 17 years for European topics and prepares them to actively shape Europe’s political, economic and social environment. During 6 weeks, a total of 8 workshops are taking place in, for example, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Estonia and Spain, each interlinked in a virtual meeting room with 3 parallel discussion weeks in Germany. The core of the initiative is a 5-day workshop during which young people develop their ideas for one of the following topics: Energy & Environment, Migration & Integration, and Family Policy.

In Estonia, the workshop was funded as well as organized by the Open Estonia Foundation. The topic Migration & Integration in Europe in 2020 was discussed with particular focus on the following questions: What migration policy do we want for Europe in 2020? Altogether 12 students from Laagna High School in Tallinn participated. During the week they received feedback from experts such as Juhan Lepassaar from the EU Secretariat of the State Chancellery and Alari Rammo from the Network of Estonianian Nonprofit Organizations.