CEJI - A Jewish Contribution to an Inclusive Europe

CEJI - A Jewish Contribution to an Inclusive Europe is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) based in Brussels, Belgium. Established in 1991, the organisation works in the field of diversity education and anti-discrimination advocacy.

Current work

Diversity Education

CEJI has created education and training programmes, the aim of which is to "enhance appreciation of Europe’s diversity including Jews, Roma, Muslims, gays and lesbians, etc."^[1] The current training programmes offered by CEJI, in a partnership entitled 'Belieforama', include:

Religious Diversity and Anti-Discrimination - foundation programme.
Overcoming Antisemitism
Overcoming Islamophobia
Reconciling Religion, Gender and Sexual Orientation
Confronting Discrimination: Facilitation Skills
Confronting Discrimination: Taking Action

Engaging Jewish Communities

In addition to its Overcoming Antisemitism programme, CEJI also runs a series of programmes specifically for the Jewish community:

Facing Facts! aims to improve monitoring and recording of hate crimes throughout the European Union. The project standardizes criteria for comparable hate crime data collection and works to train civil society organisations to gather, analyze and report incidents of hate crime and hate speech, be they anti-Jewish, anti-Roma, anti-homosexual or other.
The Diversity Tour is a training programme that travels to Jewish communities around Europe. The project aims to identify needs and activities for improving the local Jewish community’s intercultural relations.

Advocacy

CEJI's aim is to contribute to policy-making processes dealing with antisemitism, racism, xenophobia, discrimination and diversity education at the institutions of the European Union, the OSCE, the Council of Europe and within the wider spectrum of European organisations and networks active in these areas.

Related to this advocacy work is Facing Facts!, a project to improve monitoring and recording of hate crimes throughout the European Union by standardising criteria for comparable hate crime data collection. CEJI trains civil society organisations to gather, analyze and report incidents of hate crime and hate speech, be they anti-Jewish, anti-Roma, anti-homosexual or other.

Intercultural Dialogue

Interfaith and intercultural dialogue are key aspects of CEJI's work. According to CEJI: "the dialogue approach is particularly pertinent to relations between Muslim and Jewish communities, which have been greatly affected by the volatile political climate of recent years".^[2] CEJI offers training courses in both 'Overcoming Antisemitism' and 'Overcoming Islamophobia', often run as a combined training course.

Publications

Awards and Recognition

In 2008, the Belieforama suite of training courses was awarded "Gold Prize Winner for quality in adult education" from the European Commission Lifelong Learning Programme. In 2010, the Belieforama suite of training courses were awarded "First Prize Winner for Intercultural Commitment" by the BMW Group (2010). In 2013, CEJI's training programmes featured in the European Association for the Education of Adult's (EAEA) 'Excellence in Adult Education' publication.

References

External links

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