NOTE: The suggestions ¹⁾, once refined through consultation, will be the basis for a series of self-binding,voluntary commitments on behalf of civil society organisations. (A signing-up process is envisaged).Organisations will be asked to look into these issues, to draw up action plans, to implement them, to assess them annually and to report publicly. The Rainbow Platform will record the state of affairs and feed this information into the European Cultural Fora in 2009 and 2010.

STARTING WITH OURSELVES: ‘Civil society’ is not an innocent term. Nongovernmental or not-for-profit groups do not automatically embody ‘civility’. i.e. they do not automatically serve the best interest of the civil community. In particular, it does not mean they always act in respect of cultural diversity in society. In civil society organisations there are still many people who are uncertain about cultural difference, nervous about the conflict it may cause, tempted by the easy solution of excluding some while including others. Intercultural dialogue, like charity, must start at home. Every civil society organisation needs to sweep the front step or better still, sweep inside its own house first: the Platform encourages us all to consider how we reflect and act on cultural diversity.

INVESTING IN REFLECTION AND CHANGE: Civil society organisations (and their networks) need to learn to think within the new intercultural framework. Internal reflection processes will take time and special attention and planning. Changes in governance, staff compositions and activities will not happen easily; on the contrary, covert resistance or rejection is quite likely to occur. Arguments for avoiding change (for example the 'quality' argument: 'We cannot find the right people’) need to be examined rigorously and intelligently.

OWNING UP TO OUR CONTRADICTIONS: Good intentions aren't enough to change practice. The reality of many well-intentioned civic organisations is that they are moncultural, often elitist, and perpetuatge structures and working modes, which they might take disagree with morally. But if they don’t practice what they preach, they become less credible in the eyes of other cultural groups. Organisations drawing their members from immigrant groups or serving them can be similarly exclusive (in the other direction - though perhaps for more legitimate reasons). Sheltering from social pressures or fighting marginalisation as they do, “dialogue” and cooperation might not yet be their aim. But they should also ‘do as they would be done by’. We all need to recognize, understand and try to resolve these contradictions.

INVITING OTHERS TO SHARE POWER: Civil society organisations (and their networks) need to analyse the power relationships built into their management and governance. How are their boards composed? Do they reflect the changing cultural mosaic of European populations? Is power sharing with representatives of the “new” communities already accepted practice, or is it an exception? When is it an alibi? How are the staffs of civil society organisations composed? Do they reflect the changing composition of society? If not, why not? What measures need to be taken to include, train, and empower staff members with different backgrounds? Organisations set up by and for minorities or immigrant groups also need to address such issues as well, even if they arise in other forms. Let us all take every opportunity to make our governance and staff structures as diverse as our human environments have now become.

CREATIVE LEARNING: The experience of making a theatre, dance or opera work is a delicate endeavour. Every collective artwork is an experiment in harmonization without homogenization, maximizing specific talents of engaged artists without compromising their individual cultural intelligence. These artistic collaborations, taking place throughout the world, offer valuable lessons in negotiating cultural difference and heading off potential conflict. And vice-versa, we should explore mechanisms that are already at work in social processes and relate them to other spheres.

PHYSICAL PLACES FOR ARTISTIC ENDEAVOUR MUST BE “INTER-CULTIVATED: We need to create and maintain art spaces that are shared by diverse groups of citizens and artists. In other words, interdisciplinary and intercultural centres should be priorities for public policy. This requires training, the renovation/re-invention of cultural buildings and new communication and reach-out strategies, which reflect the intercultural imperative.

PROCESS AND CO-PRODUCTION: Importing and exporting artworks fills a limited function. Audiences see, consume and applaud. Artists travel, perform and leave. The contact surface exists only within the theatre, concert hall or museum and only for a short time. Guest performances often border on exoticism, regardless of the quality or the country of origin. We can avoid this superficial “internationalism” by turning shallow contacts into long-term collaborative relationships. The real aim must be for engaged co-creation, with genuine transfer and learning across cultural boundaries, in other words co-creation rather than mere co-consumption.

SERVING A BROADER COMMUNITY: Civil society organisations (and their networks) need to analyse their work programmes. Who are they serving? Which audiences are they addressing? Who determines these audiences – and how? Who designs the resources deployed to reach out to publics that are not their already existing constituency? Such questioning needs to be shared across boundaries, with respect for differing stances and options.

CO-WORKING: Civic organisations already work across cultural groups, very often it is their very raison d’être; but more active support needs to be given to collaborative working practices, rather than merely ‘helping’ or ‘supporting’ the other cultural group. There need to be transfers of working skills.

REACHING OUT TO OTHER DOMAINS: Civil society organisations (and their networks) mostly operate in isolation from one another. Yet cross-sector reflection and cooperation can provide much useful mutual inspiration and learning, as well as unexpected synergies. The Rainbow Platform already helps facilitate this mutual learning process and we should all continue further down this road.

TRAINING AND MENTORSHIP: We must learn to share skills. There should be support for mentoring programs that allow artists and cultural operators with competences in one area of endeavour to mentor people working in other sectors and transfer their knowledge to them. Likewise, educational programs need to be developed that allow emerging artists and cultural operators to come in close working contact with trained professionals in social and educational sectors. The point is to sharpen the learning curve and increase the speed of developing intercultural competencies.

TRANSNATIONAL NETWORKS: These can lead to consortia that pool divergent ideas, unite differing ambitions, stimulate new projects and initiate innovative programs. They can lead to a healthy confrontation of methods and objectives. They create a practical basis for exchange and co-production. They must be supported.