“The vote of the Diaspora – a right denied”, by Miruna Cajvaneanu

Open Society Fellows 2009

The program, initiated by Soros Foundation Romania and dedicated to Romanian fellows, goes on and in 2009 our focus is to achieve the following objectives: involving fellows within the activity of NGOs; developing a network between NGOs and fellows involved within our program; supporting and involving fellows in elaborating public policies.

This year, SFR organized the first BarCamp in Romania – Romanian FellowsCamp – dedicated to the beneficiaries of Open Society Fellows Program, but also to other fellows and NGOs or public institutions interested in collaborating with them. The event took part in 11-12 of June 2009, in Bucharest. The Faculty of Sociology and Social Assistance Bucharest was our partner in this action. The discussions were centered on many themes of high importance for the society. All these and other information are available on the web page of the event.

The following step is a traditional activity of our program and consists in organizing a projects competition for the fellows, having the occasion to develop new partnerships and to develop new projects in the NGOs where they work.

SFR wants to show the important contribution of the Romanian fellows to the evolution of our society and, thus, we intend to promote their works and recommendations of public policies realized within the program, gathering them in a special volume. Thus we consider that new policies, new ways of solving the problems can be identified and implemented.

Here are some of the titles that will be included in the volume:

• “Implementing social policies – between theory and practice: contracting social services within the child protection domain. Opportunities, challenges and benchmarks” by Roxana Carmen Girip
• “An analyze made to the change of Romanian electoral system” by Kiss Csaba Zsolt
• “The vote of the Diaspora – a right denied”, by Miruna Cajvaneanu; this work was also published in the “Political representation and the vote of the Romanians abroad”, Soros Foundation Romania, May 2009.