This year, the lecture was held in the evening of the 26th of November by Professor Judi Mesman of Leiden University and Dean of Leiden University College in The Hague. Her speech  "Parental Origins of Prejudice" was introduced by Mrs Baukje Dijkstra, Public Diplomacy officer for the MENA region at the Netherlands Embassy in Cairo.I thank both for their inspiring words, which were very well received. 

 During the same day, in cooperation with Professor Mesman, we organized a symposium on the theme "Children as current and future citizens". As participants, we had invited a total of nine speakers. In addition to this, and as a highly appreciated and novel initiative, we had also invited a group of young students (age group 15-17) from the British School in Cairo. They collectively gave two presentations during the symposium, for which they had prepared very well with the help of Raphaelle Ayach of the organization 'Safarni'. All present were very impressed with the performance of these young students. Safarni was only recently awarded second prize by the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) in the competition "Intercultural Innovation Award" (please have a look at this article). We thank Mrs Olga Kes of The British School in Cairo for helping our institute in finding these enthusiastic students willing to cooperate in this event. 

The presentation by Professor Mesman in the evening was followed by a reception on the roof terrace of our institute.

I am grateful to the Netherlands Embassy for making the organization of this annual event possible through their generous support, as well as the participants in the symposium.