About

Meet our City Coordinators:

Catherine Wurth, Vielfalt entscheidet

Project manager for Vielfalt entscheidet in Berlin and is responsible for building partnerships in Berlin, communication and project development. Prior to this, Catherine worked at the Ministry for Family and Integration in Luxembourg on diversity and integration issues. She holds master‘s degrees in Public Policy from the Hertie School of Governance, Berlin and in Migration, Mobility and Development from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. Catherine is member of the Impact Hub Berlin and is interested in topics such as professionalisation of NGOs, social impact maximisation and innovative project management tools. Catherine is born and grew up in Luxembourg.

Sepehr Shahin, DeutschPlus

Works as a policy advisor at the German Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB), where he leads an international campaign for skilled workers abroad. Prior to this he worked as a policy advisor for the Federal Ministry for Labour and Social Affairs, Stiftung Mercator and the Society for Social Business Consultancy (gsub). Sepehr is a member of the NGO DeutschPlus, where he has initiated several projects aiming at fostering social inclusion of migrants. He has been working as a cooperation partner with CFE since 2012. Sepehr holds degrees from the Hertie School of Governance and the University of Maastricht.

Shaama Saggar-Malik, DiPA

Founded DiPA in 2004, Shaama is an Independent Organisational Performance and Executive Development Consultant and Coach, and a former director of HR. She is passionate about public services and the third sector and believes that the quality of life in Britain can only truly be enhanced through encouraging more diverse participation and representation in public life. Shaama has published and co-authored several articles, training materials and books in her field. She herself holds several public appointments and combines these with the equally challenging demands of being a mother of two teenage children.

Teresa Buczkowska, Immigrant Council of Ireland

Holds a MA in Ethnology and Anthropology of Culture, obtained from Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland. Her Currently she is a PhD student in Equality Studies in the School of Social Justice at University College Dublin, Ireland. Her main subjects of interest are non-status immigrants in an Irish and a broader EU context. She has more than five years of experience working and volunteering with wide range of migrant-led organisation in Ireland working in the areas of anti-racism, integration and advocacy.

Catia Fernandes, OLAI Luxembourg

Catia is project manager at IMS Luxembourg and coordinator of Diversity Charter Letzebuerg. She works closely together with the OLAI towards more diversity in public and private institutions. Catia has a Master in European Studies and is highly interested in migration and integration policy in Luxembourg and the European context.

Beatriz Hernandez Fuhr, KVINFO

Beatriz is an information specialist and a researcher with KVINFO, The Danish Centre for Information on Gender, Equality and Diversity an institution dedicated to bringing gender’s research to the forefront of cultural debate in Denmark. Beatriz holds an B.S. in Journalism and Mass Communication from Iowa State University (US), and M.LISc. from The Danish Royal School of Library and Information Science.

DiverseCity onBoard Europe, bringing diversity to governance bodies of private and public institutions

Despite growing diversity in cities, migrants’ social mobility and political representation remain low. To respond to this challenge, the Toronto-based Maytree Foundation created the project DiverseCity onBoard. The goal of this project is to bring more migrants into the governing bodies of private and public institutions.

The project DiverseCity onBoard in Toronto (CA) by the Maytree Foundation has successfully responded to this challenge. In the EU such projects are missing. Bringing more migrants into governing bodies of private and public institutions is the goal of this project. Building on this experience together with our partners we want to implement a European learning partnership.

GRUNDTVIG Learning Partnership

The official launch and Kick-Off Meeting of the learning partnership took place in Reggio Emila/IT in January 2014 and was hosted by Mondinsieme. The partners developed the working plan, introduced their local projects and set the stage for a common learning journey on promoting diversity in leadership.

Diversity within private and public institutions promises an increase in organisational performance, in innovation and creativity, and to enhance stakeholders’ (citizens, customers, service users, etc.) satisfaction. Especially a broad diversity in decision-making and governing bodies of these institutions (cultural houses, public transport, social services, kindergardens, associations, sports centres, etc.) is a determining factor for an inclusive city.

The case of Toronto has impressively shown that diverse governing and decision-making bodies positively impact the inclusivity of the city and effectively tackle racism and discrimination. This is why Toronto’s DiverseCity onBoard project is the ground of this learning partnership. Most of the partners have participated in a learning exchange weekend in Toronto organised by the Maytree Foundation in 2012. Though not an official partner, Maytree has agreed to participate in and support the European learning-partnership, e.g. with the webinars, newsletter, the workshop in UK and dissemination.

Between 2014 and 2015, actors from all around Europe working in private and public organisations met in Berlin (June 2014), Copenhagen (November 2014) and London (April 2015) to exchange and learn from each other how to foster Diversity in Leadership in their cities.

Actors Involved

Citizens For Europe e.V. (DE) – Project Leader
DeutschPlus e.V. (DE)
Ministry of Family and Integration (LU)
Immigrant Council of Ireland (IE)
Diversity in Public Appointments (UK)
KVINFO (DK)
Fondazione Mondinsieme (IT)