Opinion Festival

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Opinion Festival is a traditional intellectual festival of Donbass

The Festival is an open platform for discussing socially important issues, where everyone can voice their opinion or receive feedback.

HISTORY

How did it all begin?

Opinion Festival takes place in Severodonetsk every September. The idea to create such a festival in Ukraine belongs to East SOS partners from the Estonian NGO Mondo. In Estonia, a similar event Arvamusfestival arvamusfestival covers almost the entire country, and its smaller copy took place in Luhansk region for the first time in 2017.

Then was born a clear vision of what this Festival should be like. Through the Festival, Severodonetsk becomes a magnet for people from all over Ukraine and an opportunity to develop the region through an interesting cultural and educational event.

You can take a look at the Opinion Festival experience in Estonia here

How does it usually happen?

Collection of topics: To understand what worries the society the most, a few months before the Festival we start collecting possible topics from those interested. This format gives everyone a chance to suggest topics that are of importance for them or the city, or to recommend an expert and join the organization of the Festival. We discuss everything: education, reforms, organization of urban space, implementation of legislative initiatives, photography, cinema, sports, art, ecology or anything else that presently worries the society.

Search for experts: To discuss selected topics, we invite opinion leaders, professionals in the topics, or government officials who can talk simply about complex matters, give answers to the questions of participants and, upon hearing a request, try to solve the voiced problem.