Michal Eskenazi
3
Why is follow-up important?
It means grounding the conference's outcome or allowing for implementation of its conclusions in a well-organized and better planned manner. Some 50% of the people we send to conferences continue to be active in YIFC or maintain ties with YIFC while they are engaged in other activities. This is important. There is a stage, which is very important, in which there is time to think things over on the last day: if this matters to us, how should we proceed? Usually this is when people have lots of good ideas for ongoing activity. During one conference, someone came up with the idea of Middle East 2020, in another, joint educational programs meant for Israelis and Palestinians in higher education in Europe. There are very creative ideas, especially given the fact that people come up with them at the very last minute on the final day, but things end there. We think it's a good idea for people to return from the conference and let things sink in, let people get their bearings, tell everybody about it and only then meet again. This ensures things are calmer because every person went through a process on a personal level and from there people continue together. During our last conference in Amsterdam, we contacted the Clingendael Institute, which is near The Hague. They have specialists in negotiation and they gave a short workshop about negotiation and game theory at our conference there and it left quite an impression on all our participants. We would like to organize professional workshops for people who want to work together on joint projects.