Point is coming home: A place to sit down together and share our experiences

This year’s Point conference will be oriented towards reflecting on the pandemic.

Under the name “coming home”, this year’s Point Conference opened on the 11th of November in Dom mladih, in Sarajevo, with an opening speech by Darko Brkan, director of CA “Zašto ne”.

“After the long hard two years, we are back with an in-person conference. We are more excited then when we had Point no.1”,

The conference will be mostly oriented towards talking and reflecting on the pandemic.

“We just want to use this conference to sit down together and share our experiences.
We want to have this as a circle of people that are talking about a previous period and talk about what is ahead of us, about the future”, said Brkan.

Besides reflecting on the pandemic, Brkan informed the guests that Point is going to be used to help a large group of activists and journalists from Afghanistan who are currently living in Albania with their families, fleeing from the Taliban regime.

Our friends from Afghanistan joined us via link to share the challenges they are facing.

Enayatullah Osmani, Chairman of Women and Peace Studies Organization and a fellow of CA “Zašto ne” (Why not) in 2017, said that he and his colleagues, as well as their families, lost everything.

He recalled crimes commited by the Taliban regime, violations against women’s rights and arrests of activsts and journalists. He said that the refugees face many challenges, and they don’t know how long they will stay in Albania.

Elias Nawandish, a journalist from one of the largest media organisations in Afghanistan, said that this country’s democratic order came to a tragic end as the Taliban took over.

“Journalists are being brutally tortured and the media is shuting their offices down. Nearly 150 media organisations have stopped their activity”, said Elias.

Some media organisations are still working remotely. However, it takes time and skills to adjust to this new reality. He ended his speech by asking for support and expressing gratitude to everyone.