FUEN and UNPO to strengthen their partnership

FUEN President Loránt Vincze and policy advisor Johan Häggman met on Tuesday with Ralph Bunch, Secretary General, and Julie Duval,programme officer, of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation, UNPO in the FUEN Brussels office. New ways of enhancing the cooperation between the two organisations to defend and promote minority rights and linguistic and cultural diversity were discussed.

“We share the same values, we both represent and defend minorities, and due to the differences in approach and target groups that exist, we complement each other”, Loránt Vincze said.

UNPO, which was founded in the Netherlands, is a global movement for non-violent changes and takes pride in defending peoples and nations that lack representation in the decision-making progress of their respective countries.

FUEN and UNPO agreed to work together on a number of issues.

“UNPO agreed that the Pact between minority and majority is an important tool in defending those that are unrepresented and don’t get their voice heard. They promised us their full support in promoting the pact” according to Vincze and added that “FUEN is already very thankful for their contribution in promoting the Minority SafePack Initiative”.

Ralph Bunche mentioned UNPO’s important work for the self-determination of women in order to foster gender equality especially among minorities. The endeavour is also an EU-funding opportunity. The working title of the 1-2 year project is “Women of Change” and would by financed through a Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers of the EU grant. The aim is to create a global solidarity network between women from different communities. FUEN promised to look into it and see how they could contribute especially regarding the part on women belonging to autochthonous minorities.

Both organisations stressed the importance of training their member organisations and agreed on sharing methods and best practices in capacity building.