For three days, Birmingham was the capital city of European citizens. Over 325 active residents from 6 different countries attended the Resident University at the University of Birmingham. People could meet up and exchange experiences at the excursions and workshops or at the market-square where most resident groups presented their materials. Birmingham was a warm and inspiring setting for meeting up with old and new friends from all over Europe.

The Lord Mayor of Birmingham opened the University on Wednesday evening at the Brasshouse Pub. It was a great night to get into the right atmosphere.

On Thursday, the university was opened by chair of the day Matt Lane with an discussion about the theme ‘Big City, Small Neighbourhoods, One Vision!. Naseem Akthar (Balsall Heath forum) opened the discussion and residents from different places took a seat in the living room on stage to talk about their neighbourhoods and vision. The history professor and great performer Carl Chinn paved the way for an interesting look at Birmingham. The pouring rain couldn’t’ t stop people for going to the excursions in different parts of Birmingham. But happily the rain transformed into a pale sun after a few hours. At the end of the afternoon, when people came back, they could talk about (and paint!) the impressions of the day.

On Friday the event was hosted by Masood Yasin, a resident of Birmingham, and started with an interesting speech of Joe Montgomery, the head of the National Neighbourhood Renewal Unit (RNU) in England. This was an perfect introduction for the workshops that were being held afterwards. Take a look at the button ‘key messages workshops’ to get an understanding of what was being said on that sunny Friday afternoon.

After a look into the future, where Douwe Wielenga presented the plans of R4R for the next months,  Councillor Jim Whorwood officially closed The Resident University, but not before the paintings were being offered to representatives of the different countries present: Belgium, Germany, Lithuania, Bulgaria, The Netherlands and the UK. The Dutch painting was given to Jannie Lispet and will be presented at the European Residents Centre in The Hague.

We would like to thank the City Council of Birmingham, the University of Birmingham and of course the residents of Birmingham for giving us the opportunity to organise such a great event. In the next weeks we will organise evaluations and we hope to have a big review (with photo’s) on a short notice!

See you in Antwerp on 19-21 april 2007!

The R4R-team.