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aktuell, Vienna
Strong Beyond Borders …
Networking-Conference of the Associate Member of the European Forum Alpbach
This year's topic drew attention to all different kind of borders one can meet: Borders between countries, cultures, languages and religion in the common sense and also to borders between individual IGs in SEE/CEE and Western Europe.
In various workshops more than 60 young participants from all over Europe exchanged their experiences and cooperated to enlarge the European Network of Associate Members of the European Forum Alpbach. It was very interesting to talk about the various challenges in the different countries e.g. communication, events and dialogues, networking, cooperation-projects and fund raising.

This year's conference took place in Vienna, a city which is often called a melting pot of cultures. Therefore IG Vienna chose the movie "Nordrand" by Barbara Albert to present the Network-Members from Sarajevo, Istanbul, Kiew and the other Clubs and IGs not only the beautiful sight-seeing-views and beautiful architecture but also the challenges in terms of integration, social issues in architecture and structures which every big city meets and deals with. This socio-critical background was the basis for a very spirited, boarders-crossing and mind-opening pannel-discussion on saturday evening with Barbara Albert, Matilda Leko, Albert Gächter and Bettina Schwarzmayr.
Dr. Erhard Busek
, president of the European Forum Alpbach, also joined the young people's discussion and passed comments. As a result the European multi-cultural audience didn't see Vienna as a melting pot but as a "salad bowl". Afterwards the young Europeans celebrated at the Badeschiff, next to the Urania.

It was a very long day for everybody, as IG Vienna invited to a clubbing, the participants of this years IG-Conference wouldn't miss all the fun and stayed till late in the morning - celebrating the Spirit of Alpbach and the European Idea. As a result this network of young Europeans became more close meshed, filled with the spirit of Alpbach, of Europe and cooperations strong beyond any borders!
Vienna, January 9th to 11th 2009
Strong beyond borders
In reference to the motto "strong beyond borders" the aim of the meeting is firstly to support and strengthen the collaboration between the Alpbach Associate Members, Clubs and Initiative Groups, throughout the year, however secondly and most importantly to offer a platform for working together on the issue of a common Europe.

Der Standard

See more: www.ig-wien.at