Soirée Internationale with Yasmine Sherif

This Soirée, we will have Yasmine Sherif as special guest speaker. Born in Sweden, this Egyptian-Swedish loves to play piano and skateboard. After having studied law and specialised in international human rights and humanitarian law, she served with the United Nations especially in conflict-affected countries and at the UN Headquarters in New York.

With the UN Development Agency (UNDP) she is the “founding mother” of the “Global Programme for Rule of Law, Justice and Security”. This programme is now the basis of UNDP activities in 30 countries all over the world (Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Columbia, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Honduras, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Mali, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Palestine, Papua New Guinea, RDC, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sri Lanka, Sudan, Sudan, Timor-Leste, Tunisia).

After 25 years with the UN, she decided to examine how the UN’s potential could be achieved. In her book, “The Case for Humanity: An Extraordinary Session”. She invited some hundred of the greatest minds throughout times (Lao Tsu, Aristotle, Beethoven, Abraham Lincoln, Albert Camus, Khalil Gibran, Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks etc.) to travel through time and space and come to the UN Security Council in New York to share their wisdom on values, leadership and humanity. In a fictious debate, using their own words as once spoken, they assist us to find answers and even solutionsto the most burning challenges of the 21st century. Surprisingly – or possibly “not surprisingly” – this book became a bestseller.

As Yasmine Sherif will be in Brussels to speak at a conference, I have invited her to be the special guest the evening before this event on “Combating violent extremism” and to share with us her vision of the 21 century (and though doing an EU launch of her book). She will be accompanied at the Soirée by Ali Khashan, the former Justice Minister from Palestine.

Once the roughly 40 participants comprising never less than 25 different national backgrounds have arrived, I shortly introduce each participant. After having filled your plate at the hot buffet (as often as you want: à volonté), you are supposed to sit at several tables in order to give many others the pleasure of your company. At every soirée a special speaker introduces his work, followed by questions and answers. At the end everyone is asked to contribute to the costs of the dinner.

Michal Mlcousek from TIME FOR WORDS (family-owned business with expertise in film, TV and media production over three generations) was at one of the last Soirée International and produced a five minute video.

Would you like to participate in this Soirée: