7th Freja Forum, Brussels, 3 – 5 November 2013

7th Freja Forum, Brussels, 3 – 5 November 2013

The 7th Freja Forum was held in Brussels from 3 – 5 November 2013. Freja Forum is focused on discussing equal opportunities, democracy, and this year it was dedicated to organizational challenges of civil society.

The previous six forums were held in Tuzla, Zagreb, Belgrade, Skopje, Tirana and Istanbul, thanks to, above all, the support of the Swedish Union of Tenants from Aros Javla. This year’s head organizer of the forum was the international association Freja Academy. The Academy was established last year and based on accomplishments of previous Freja Forums, with the support of the program of the European Commission “People to People”. Brussels was the best choice for discussing the topics for the conference and for gathering the participants from all the countries of the Western Balkans, which have not become members of the EU yet, and the representatives of CSOs from Sweden and other countries of the EU.

Like the previous years, most of the participants from Serbia were members of the Association of Business Women in Serbia. For ABW the Freja Forum is one of the most favorite projects, since, in these couple of days the participants receive the opportunities for meeting large number of participants from other countries, opportunities for business meetings similar to those organized in Belgrade, Podgorica, Tirana and Istanbul.

Above all, the Freja Forum is a place for sharing experiences, opinions, for refutation or affirmation of views, it is a source if new ideas, which are surely the beginning of endeavors and businesses. So, this year, one of the most interesting topics was on the subject of social entrepreneurship. This subject was discussed on a panel at the conference, in which Dusica Semencenko , the coordinator of the Freja Forum and member of management board of Freja Academy, participated.

Last year, the lecture on lobbying e.g. was stimulus for establishing the Board for Advocacy of ABW, and in 2011 a seminar on social networks stimulated many ABW members to join these networks or to use them even more.

We hope that Freja Forum will continue with its work next year, thanks to growing number of members of Freja Academy and to very positive evaluations of both participants and organizers of this year’s Forum.