Polish and Israeli students are due to familiarise themselves with Gdańsk’s social problems and search for innovative ways of solving them. The best projects have a chance of being implemented. This is the sixth time that the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Gdańsk and the European Solidarity Centre have hosted Polish-Israeli Innocamp workshops as part of the Leaders of Democracy project.

Between 6-7 November 2016, the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Gdańsk and the European Solidarity Centre will host for the sixth time Polish-Israeli workshops during which 30 Polish and Israeli students will take part in Innocamp – an intensive innovative camp whose participants will discover the tools for supporting social economy and spend 30 hours working on a solution to a particular social problem (the so-called Challenge). The solutions will then be assessed by competent jurors who will decide on their potential implementation in Gdańsk. A special guest of the workshops will be Deputy Ambassador of Israel in Warsaw Ruth Cohen-Dar.

The Polish-Israeli exchange is organised as part of the Leaders of Democracy project and is aimed at providing a study visit to Poland for representatives of Israeli opinion makers, social leaders and young professionals in the fields of international relations and public diplomacy. They aim to create a greater understanding of Polish history and culture, particularly concerning Poland’s involvement in democracy, the shaping of civil society and the development of intercultural dialogue.

The main idea behind the project is to create the possibility of establishing contact between representatives of opinion makers, social leaders and young professionals from Poland and Israel, to help them get to know each other and their mutual competences, with a view to establishing further platforms of cooperation for the development of both countries, both at the official and civil level. Another important aspect is to establish dialogue in order to combat stereotypes and prejudice.

The project is partially funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland, with Innocamp directly organised by the Living Bridge Foundation in partnership with the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Gdańsk.