Yulia Radanova, a participant in the project “Initiative for building the next generation of civic leaders”, funded by the EEA FM Active Citizens Fund, is a lawyer, mediator, university lecturer in mediation and chair of the Institute of Mediation and Dispute Management /IMEUS/. Together with fellow mediators, lawyers and alternative dispute resolution experts, she founded IMEUS in 2018.
"The mission of IMEUS Association is to create a perception of the state of conflict as something positive," says Julia Radanova, "because it is an opportunity to achieve constructively changed relationships, healthy dialogue and lasting solutions."
Since the establishment of the Association, the IMEUS team has been engaged in active project work, in conducting mediation procedures, and in teaching negotiation, mediation techniques and effective communication. One of the most successful projects of IMEUS is Femina Ius, where women from all over Bulgaria receive free and easy information about their rights and how to protect them in three main thematic areas: parenthood, separation from spouse/partner and protection from domestic violence. Recently, the experts of IMEUS have also appeared as vloggers with their own podcast.
"The state of emergency inspired us to join the otherwise large-scale generation of online content with something of our own," says Julia Radanova. "We often repeat that conflict is a positive thing because of the opportunities it gives us. But conflict is essentially a state of crisis. That is to say, conflict strongly resembles what we are immersed in for the second month now. However, whether we can find the positive in it and come out of it with the current crisis also implies bringing about positive change. That's what we focus on in our podcast episodes - how to be better negotiators in a crisis, how to make the crisis lead us to the most successful conflict resolution."
The IMEUS podcast was launched on the 20th of April and two episodes have already been broadcast. In the pilot, Julia Radanova discusses the negotiation techniques that the National Operational Headquarters uses in its communication with Bulgarian civil society. In episode two, Georgi Elenkov, a member of the IMEUS team, presents the topic of negotiation when there is asymmetry in the negotiating parties' strengths."
At this stage, the episodes are broadcast live on Facebook, on the IMEUS page, every Monday - between 17:00 and 17:30.
"After the first two episodes we received positive feedback indicating strong viewer interest and support. This gives us even more confidence to continue developing our podcast and IMEUS' online training activities in general. Stay tuned. And watch us this Monday at 5 p.m. sharp HERE“