On the occasion of the fourth United Nation Alliance of Civilizations Forum in Doha, Qatar, the European online magazine cafebabel.com was awarded the third prize for its outstanding contribution to intercultural journalism.

Pictured above: the interior and exterior of the Doha convention centre

The magazine, which is legally listed in France as an NGO, won the prestigious gong for its annual flagship feature reports project, ‘Europe on the ground’. The pan-European programme was selected out of 400 projects from 70 countries for this award. For ‘Europe on the ground’ cafebabel.com sends every year 50 to 80 young European or Europe-residing journalists of different nationalities ‘on the ground’ to report on the contemporary realities we experience in Europe.

Alexandre Heully of cafebabel.com, fourth from left, joins the other prizewinners and Jorge Sampaio

In the presence of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, three prominent personalities handed Alexandre Heully, co-founder and executive director of cafebabel.com, the award: former journalist Princess Rym Ali of Jordan, Jorge Sampaio, the former President of Portugal and High Representative for the Alliance of Civilizations, and Konstanze Carreras, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility of BMW Group.

Watch Princess Rym of Jordan award 'third prize' of the intercultural innovation award to 'Europe on the ground' for cafebabel.com, and see Alexandre Heully's speech here (scroll to minute 24:44)

Princess Rym of Jordan declared: ‘As an intercultural media, cafebabel.com contributes to a better understanding between different cultures’. Of her acting role as ‘Godmother’ to cafebabel.com in 2012, she added that she would be working to ‘intensify links between European journalists from cafebabel.com and journalists from the Jordan Media Institute’.

During the ceremony, Alexandre Heully, co-founder and executive director declared: ‘After ten years of existence, this award from the United Nations is global recognition for cafebabel.com’s activity as a participatory media, edited by professional journalists in Paris and relying on the contributions of volunteers from all across Europe’. The 5, 000 dollar prize will be used to ‘expand cafebabel.com network of contributors and to develop a new internet platform’.

In addition to the cash prize, Alexandre Heully will be invited to join the World Intercultural Facility for Innovation group. WIFI is a platform for winners to connect with potential donors and mentors and among themselves.

Created in 2001 in Strasbourg, France, by a handful of European students, cafebabel.com is the first European online magazine, made by young people, for young people. Entirely translated in six languages - French, English, German, Spanish, Italian and Polish - cafebabel.com publishes articles related to cultural, political and social issues from a pan-European perspective. ‘EOTG’ has evolved in its five years of existence as an annual ‘reporting’ mission, with each year bringing it a new editorial flavour:

• EUdebate (2009) focused on the European elections

• EU Crisis on the ground (2010) took its lead from the economic downturn

• Green Europe on the ground (2011) published articles centred on a more environmentally-friendly conscious continent

• Multikulti on the ground has kicked off for 2012 – keep reading us in 2012 for more!

Contact:

Alexandre Heully, executive director, co-founder

Email: a.heully@cafebabel.com

Ready to flex your German language muscles?

Financial crisis, identity crisis, crisis crisis. Do young Europeans still believe in unity? Editorial coordinator Katharina Kloss explains how we try to lock down on a pan-European editorial line, speaks about the best-selling German literature and how as former erasmus students, this world may only be limited to a minority elite.

'I am Europe - searching for a European vision' (57 minutes) is German radio reporter Laura Freisberg's piece gauging cafebabel.com's opinions after having spent some time at HQ here in Paris recently.

You can listen to 'I am Europe - Auf der Suche nach europäischen Visionen' on Munich-based Bayern 2's programme Zuendfunk here, download it here or find it on itunes (for free) by typing in the keywords 'Zündfunk Langstrecke'; (Scroll the cursor towards the last quarter of the programme).

Viel spass!

Hello!

Our Sardinian editor, Nicola, who has run cafebabel.it for most of 2011, is moving on to pastures anew. The imminent departure was not timed with Mr Berlusconi!

Very briefly, in English, this job posting is for under-26s (applicants born after 16 January 1986)]

It is to be based in Paris between January and September 2012 (nine months) on a civic service contract, 35 hours a week.

Read the job advert in full, in French here!

Come join us!

Deadline 15 December 2011 - contact editorial coordinator Katharina Kloss (job@cafebabel.com) and Italian editor-in-chief Nicola Accardo (n.accardo@cafebabel.com)

(Image: © whitematter/ Flickr/ stop-n-think.tumblr.com/)

For the seventh year in a row cafebabel.com the European magazine continues to go ‘on the ground’ with its Europe-wide monthly reporting missions.

After the successes of EU Crisis on the ground (2009/ 2010) and Green Europe on the ground (2010/ 2011), we can confirm that for 2011/ 2012, we shall be sending a cafebabel.com editor and four citizen journalists and photographers out to a different European city every month from November 2011 in the framework of ‘MULTIKULTI on the ground'.

Multiwhatty what where now?

Image © Cedric Audinot for cafebabel.com

What a word - that stands for 'Multiculturalism on the ground', folks, as inspired by the German chancellor Angela Merkel’s famous saying this year, ‘MultiKulti is dead’.

The start

'cafebabel.com'' is a citizen media aiming to empower European citizens. Young journalists have the opportunity of experiencing a genuine journalistic experience reporting 'on the ground'. In 2011/ 12 we go 'multikulti', and not just to any city: we usually visit cities where we have welcoming, existed or freshly-created local teams of volunteers and journalists.

The spiel

Once upon a time (well, 2010) in Germany, a chairman on the German Bundesbank, Thilo Sarrazin, published a best-selling anti-Islam book called ‘Germany Abolishes Itself’ (Deutschland schafft sich ab). The next thing you knew, Angela Merkel came out with the statement that ‘multikulti has failed’. The German chancellor was joined by a growing number of political leaders such as English prime minister David Cameron, French president Nicolas Sarkozy and former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar in her musings.

If we believe our politicians, the recent debates over national identity and the rise of right extremist voices in many EU countries, then hi-ho, ‘multikulti’ has indeed come to a dead end in Europe. So what does your average person on the ground say? What issues are overlooked, or underlooked? Where’s the funk in the angle on this story?

Where cafebabel.com comes in

...is where our generation comes in – we represent a mobile and open-minded generation trying to break down imaginary walls between cultures. Wasn’t there something about ‘unity in diversity’ somewhere in this game? Scapegoating is no solution. Multiculturalism cannot be blamed for all the problems that Europe has to tackle nowadays; multiculturalism is a fact! Our citizen journalists will concentrate on this mission in articles and photo galleries to be published on cafebabel.com between 2011-2012. __ How?__

We are organising a series of ten feature editions and debates with a critical perspective on close-to-the people multiculturalism issues all over Europe. The project will be kicked off in the magnificent Rome between 23-27 November, home of one of cafebabel’s most vintage local teams, and where the first citizen journalist team is going to head. The second mission is slated for Vilnius between 8-11 December 2011.

__Who’s in? __ Our hosts with the most are:

cafebabel.com Rome (November 2011)

cafebabel.com Vilnius (December 2011)

cafebabel.com Paris (January 2012)

cafebabel.com Athens

cafebabel.com Vienna

cafebabel.com Strasbourg

cafebabel.com Seville

cafebabel.com Berlin

cafebabel.com Warsaw

Plus a huge welcome to one of our newest teams, cafebabel.com Copenhagen.

... watch this space for more cities joining us in 2012!

The principle is simple

FIVE reporters including one photographer and one Paris HQ editor from the cafebabel.com network are welcomed in a European city by one of these kind cafebabel.com local team. FOUR days is the challenge: arrange interviews, conduct investigations, reveal the ‘multikulti’ character of Europe's cities for later publication on cafebabel.com.

Eligibility

Applicants have to be under 35.

Only persons residing in a country eligible for the programme will get their travels reimbursed. It is not a matter of nationality but residence: participants can only come from and travel from a country that has chosen to participate in this European programme. Thus, the countries participating in the programme are: member states of the European Union + Croatia, Macedonia/ the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Albania. Participants to Multikulti on the Ground will have to live in and travel from those countries.

The debate

Meanwhile, the local teams will treat themselves with cafe shots over a debate on multiculturalism in Europe with guests from civil society and opinion leaders in their country. Follow the debate's programme on the cafebabel.com cityblogs

Publishing your article: back in Paris

Back home, our editors will edit and publish the articles (by now translated into all six official languages of the magazine) on cafebabel.com

Are you in?

Only serious candidates interested in writing and producing an original, fresh and well-researched article for cafebabel.com need apply with your ideas and thoughts.

Contact redaktion@cafebabel.com

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. The Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

'My favourite place in the whole of Istanbul is Cafe Babel. In the two weeks I have spent here, I have visited it every other night as it is truly the cosiest cafe in Cihangir, a neighbourhood in the European part of Istanbul, where I am staying (and indeed possibly in all of Istanbul). Perhaps this is because of its internationalism. The barman often stands on the street, inviting passersby like me to come in. He doesn’t do this in the way you often see in areas with lots of restaurants where everyone says hello and places the menu in your hands while you are walking on down the street. This guy is interested what are you doing in Istanbul. When I accepted his invitation to come into the cafe the first evening, he brought me food and drink according to what I told him about myself: caj, grapes, coffee, aubergines - all fits, trust me! But before tucking in, you need to move the cat that has curled up in your lap as though you are a regular here. The friend I am staying with told me that the owner, Hassan is her friend. Another friend also suggested we meet there as she frequents the place because Hassan's son studies in London where she lives too. When we arrive, another friend is sitting there as she is currently staying at Hassan's. What a space of gathering - local and cosmopolitan and right in the middle of this great city that connects the continents.'

Text and images by London-based Serbian photographer Nela Milic