Middle: Jelske Dijkstra en Cor van der Meer receive the Award. Photo: LUCA CHIANDONI
Mercator awarded Italian ALTRE EUROPE Award!
![[Translate to English:] Jelske Dijkstra (l) & Cor van der Meer. Fotografy: Luca Chiandoni](/fileadmin/_processed_/3/9/csm_2025_news_suns5_5c22abd2d3.jpg "[Translate to English:] Jelske Dijkstra (l) & Cor van der Meer. Fotografy: Luca Chiandoni")
It came as a big surprise when a phone call came in from the Dutch embassy in Italy a few weeks ago. Jelske Dijkstra, the current project manager at Mercator, and Cor van der Meer, who was project manager for over 20 years and recently retired, were invited to travel to the northern Italian city of Udine to receive the ALTRE EUROPE Award.
Forty years of research activities
The award ceremony for this ‘lifetime achievement’ award took place at the SUNS Festival in Udine, the festival for performing arts in European minority languages. The award was presented by Federico Pirone, Councillor for Culture of the Municipality of Udine, and Carlo Puppo, President of the event.
In his speech, Pirone cited three reasons why Mercator deserved the ALTRE EUROPE prize. These were ‘for almost forty years of research activities devoted primarily to the minority languages of our continent; for the quantity, quality and availability of studies on the situation of minority languages in education and on linguistic diversity; but also because, through all these activities, Mercator is a point of reference for all European minority communities and thus gives impetus to the promotion of language rights in Europe.’
Proud
Jelske Dijkstra is delighted with the award: "I think it's a huge boost for Mercator. The award is a great appreciation and recognition of our work. This was also confirmed this morning during the programme for schoolchildren by the teachers who came up to us." That morning, Dijkstra and Van der Meer were guests at a theatre lecture for about 300 children to talk about multilingualism and Mercator's work. Cor van der Meer also sees the award as recognition for Mercator's work. ‘It shows that our efforts on behalf of the lesser-used languages in Europe are also appreciated by other minorities. As employees, we can be proud of that!’
SUNS
SUNS Europe is the European Festival for the Performing Arts in European Minority Languages. The festival began in 2009 as a music competition for minority communities in the Alpine and Mediterranean regions of Europe and has since grown into a meeting and exchange platform for artists from minority language groups in Europe.
More information about the festival can be found on the festival website.