How to get to successful “multi-culti” activities Principle of neutrality   Considering that there is no need to explain the genesis of the term neutrality as it is easily understandable, in this text I would like to refer to several aspects of neutrality that can contribute to successful realization of multi-ethnic projects. It means that the focus will be on: neutrality in the project team, neutrality in the place of your main activity and neutrality of the contents of your messages in the project. Above all, from a point of a project cycle, neutrality should be considered as a relevant component in all phases of project implementation. It can not be of smaller significance in the identification phase and of bigger in the main activity. Why? Firstly, in order to start activities that carry the idea and the spirit of multi-culturalism and you, as an important part of the story should not only declaratively prove that you are the right person for such job, but to show it with tangible facts, that will put closer your target group to your goal and project goal with their symbolism. Each small symbolic bias of the working team means loss of trust by the target group. When making the project team we often neglect the fact that the target group we work with should be represented to the maximum in all phases. If we organize activities of multi-ethnic character and our project team consists of a homogenous structure, then we have built in a self-destructive element that we have to eliminate. Furthermore, we should be aware that no one wants to be just a number that will serve for statistical data in project results. The more the structure of the team is heterogeneous, and more or less they have equal power in decision making, the more your doors will be open and your success will be bigger. It is all related to equality, but put in context of neutrality in order to prove the significance of symbolism of our deeds and non-deeds. Neutrality in terms of the place is important for several aspects. No one would feel pleasant in a place where parts of his own identity and existence were laughed at, blackmailed or endangered, for example, the Ohrid Agreement is a kind of a process of facilitation and it was signed in Ohrid as this place provided minimum criteria for eliminating the feelings of hostility. It could have been held somewhere in Western Europe, but the significance of reached agreement is always bigger when parties participants in the agreement solve their own problem by themselves in their place. In order to provide neutrality, the interior of the room was arranged in a way that showed neutrality (there were not any religious and patriotic pictures that could have negatively affected the negotiators). So as you choose a place of your main activity, you determine conditions for bigger participation of your target group. On the other hand, I think that it is completely irresponsible and unprofessional to implement seminars, training courses and our main project activities in some attractive tourist places. Sometimes when you have a group of Albanians from Western Macedonia and you take them to Eastern Macedonia, you create conditions of trust, thus dispelling stereotypes. Neutrality in this sense can be very easily provided by planning follow-up activities for the same group, with changed roles where “the host becomes a guest”, but these activities should be familiar to the group in advance. In this way the participants would have a direct opportunity to become familiar with the culture and the values of the community they are visiting. In my opinion neutrality in terms of project contents determines the trainer’s successfulness. By some strange inertia foreigners can very easily provide neutrality by participants when running training courses. This is a normal process and it has even bigger importance on the Balkans where we very easily open towards them and express our anger, rather than doing it with a local trainer. I consider my explanation for this to be rational and it refers to gaining sympathies by the trainer (foreigner) with convenience that “we are right!” But if we talk, for example, about dialogue-sessions, I think that they will be given multiply meaning if they are run by local trainers. I stated it in plural as I think that a foreigner can run sensitive dialogue-sessions, but if they were run by a local trainer, there should be at least two professionals that would provide neutrality with melange of their identity. It means that local professional trainers should have a good feeling for what is going on around them, and at the same time they should be sensitive to the principles of equality and neutrality and they could be excellent initiators of understanding, cooperation and tolerance. This is so due to the fact that they have their own experiences and knowledge of the context and they can use them as a “joker” when things get off the track. Every conscious and unconscious use of biased statements and messages should be eliminated by constant self-evaluation and accepting critics by associates. Harmful effects should not even be talked about and their negative effect is even bigger when working with children at the age when they realize the world better and create their personality. A lot could be talked about the principle of neutrality in projects, but I will stop here and use some other occasions to incorporate part of this topic in some other topics. In the next article I will refer to a few problems that occur during the implementation of multi-ethnic projects, for example use of languages and translation when organizing seminars and conferences, as something I have been frequently asked about recently by my colleagues in the civil society organization.