University of Padua: signed the Memorandum of Understanding between the European Ombudsman Institute and the Italian Ombudsman Institute
On Monday, June 11th, at 12 a.m, at the Human Rights Centre of the University of Padua, Burgi Volgger and Josef Siegele, respectively President and Secretary General of the European Ombudsman Institute (EOI), and Marco Mascia, Director of the Human Rights Centre, signed the Memorandum of Understanding between the European Ombudsman Institute (EOI) and the Italian Ombudsman Institute, established at the Human Rights Centre.
Present at the meeting were Lucia Franchini, Ombudsman of the Region of Tuscany, Vittorio Gasparrini, member of the EOI Executive Committee and Coordinator of the Italian Ombudsman Institute, Antonio Papisca, UNESCO Chair "Human rights, democracy and peace", Paolo De Stefani, Director of the European Master's Programme in Human Rights and Democratisation (E.MA), Luca Gazzola and Sofia Omar Osman, Archive Peace Human Rights.
The objective of the Memorandum is to develop programs and projects in order to contribute, as widely as possible, to the protection and promotion of human rights, the culture of peace and the spread of Ombudsman Institutions worldwide.
The Memorandum provides for the elaboration of an annual programme of activities which includes research and training projects, seminars, cultural events, counselling and assistance activities to Ombudsman offices and to governamental, intergovernamental and non-governamental organizations, exchange programs for the staff of these institutions, support for the publication of books and informative campaigns, the establishment of a network of universities engaged in research and teaching in the field of Ombudsman institutions.
Some of the first joint activities include: the publication of a comparative analysis of the experience of Ombudsmen in all European countries; the planning of internships, for the students of the Master's Degree Course in Institutions and Policies of Human Rights and Peace of the University of Padua, at the EOI and at the Ombudsman offices members of the EOI; the organization of a cicle of seminars about the Ombudsman in the framework of the Master's Degree Course, with the participation of the Ombudsmen members of the EOI; the schedule of a road map to improve the cooperation with the International Coordinating Committee of National Human Rights Institutions for the promotion and protection af human rights (ICC), at the OHCHR, and with the Council of Europe.