{"id":6452,"date":"2025-04-11T11:31:16","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T11:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demokracia.umb.sk\/?p=6452"},"modified":"2025-08-01T13:46:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T13:46:06","slug":"internship-opportunity-2-2-3-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demokracia.umb.sk\/index.php\/2025\/04\/11\/internship-opportunity-2-2-3-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Guardian article on Celebrating a Slovak Grassroots Movement for Democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We are proud to share that on April 11, 2025, <em>The Guardian<\/em> published an inspiring opinion piece by Alexandra Bitu\u0161\u00edkov\u00e1 titled <strong>\u201cIn Slovakia, our grassroots movement helped oust a neo-Nazi. We can do it again.\u201d<\/strong> The article, featured in the newspaper\u2019s Opinion section, was commissioned as part of <em>The Guardian<\/em>\u2019s focus on civic initiatives around the world that defend democracy and promote democratic values.<\/p>\n<p>Alexandra\u2019s story reflects the powerful journey of <strong>Not in Our Town<\/strong>, a grassroots initiative based in Bansk\u00e1 Bystrica, Slovakia. Since 2013, this movement has led educational and mobilization efforts against extremism, promoting civic engagement and democratic resilience. Their work played a key role in countering the rise of a neo-Nazi regional governor elected in 2013\u2014an event that shocked Slovakia and the international community.<\/p>\n<p>The <strong>BRRIDGE project<\/strong> draws inspiration from this story. We believe that fostering democracy requires dedication, collaboration, and the collective effort of diverse stakeholders. With the support of our BRRIDGE partners Central European University, European University Institute and University of Galway, <strong>Matej Bel University (UMB)<\/strong> is proud to contribute to this mission.<\/p>\n<p>UMB\u2019s longstanding commitment to democracy has deep roots in Slovakia\u2019s post-communist transformation and was further galvanized by the university\u2019s rapid and active response to the 2013 election crisis in the Bansk\u00e1 Bystrica region, a historical stronghold of the anti-Nazi movement in Slovakia. In the face of that challenge, UMB academics joined forces with civic organizations and local activists to create impactful initiatives that promote democratic values and civic participation.<\/p>\n<p>These efforts eventually culminated in the establishment of the <strong>Institute for Democracy<\/strong> at UMB\u2014a formal hub for academic and civic cooperation in defending democracy.<\/p>\n<p>We are pleased and honoured that this movement has received international recognition from one of the world\u2019s leading newspapers.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<strong>Read the full article here:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/ng-interactive\/2025\/apr\/11\/in-slovakia-our-grassroots-movement-helped-oust-a-neo-nazi-we-can-do-it-again\"><em>The Guardian<\/em> \u2013 \u201cIn Slovakia, our grassroots movement helped oust a neo-Nazi. We can do it again.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We are proud to share that on April 11, 2025, The Guardian published an inspiring opinion piece by Alexandra Bitu\u0161\u00edkov\u00e1 titled \u201cIn Slovakia, our grassroots&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6453,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-announcements"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demokracia.umb.sk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demokracia.umb.sk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demokracia.umb.sk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demokracia.umb.sk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demokracia.umb.sk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6452"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/demokracia.umb.sk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6583,"href":"https:\/\/demokracia.umb.sk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6452\/revisions\/6583"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demokracia.umb.sk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demokracia.umb.sk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demokracia.umb.sk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demokracia.umb.sk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}