2017/18

Aurelija Olendraitė

Education:

Master of International and EU Law, Vilnius University
Entrepreneurship Development Institute, India

Experience

The Advocates for Human Rights, USA
Bridges to Safety, USA
National Defence Volunteer Force

Motivation

Creating a better environment in my community and throughout Lithuania has always been and still is important to me. That is why I have always been interested in the topic of citizenship when working and volunteering in non–governmental organisations in Lithuania and other countries. And as a lawyer, I see many legal and other related instruments that can encourage citizenship and lay the right foundations for the development of civil society. Therefore, I would like to bring my knowledge and experience to help Lithuania find an effective recipe to strengthen Lithuanian civil society.

In the day–to–day work of building Lithuania, you want to be able to protect what you have built. That is why in 2017 I decided to join the National Defence Volunteer Force. I think it was one of the best decisions I ever made, because together with other soldiers, we are constantly learning and improving.

Rotation

5 March 2018 - 5 September 2018

Increasing resilience of Lithuanian diaspora to disinformation

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania

Propaganda and disinformation have become an integral part of international relations these days. By utilizing disinformation campaigns, third parties are intervening into national security matters, trying to influence the outcomes of the elections and referendums on questions of major importance. The examples of the presidential elections in the USA and France, as well as Brexit referendum in the UK are sending an alarming signal and exposing how dangerous and harmful to democracy such interventions can be. These risks are also relevant for Lithuania and their relevance is predicted to skyrocket in the upcoming year. With the presidential elections, accompanied by European Parliament elections and, most probably, a referendum on dual citizenship in 2019, Lithuania is expected to face more and wider disinformation attacks, touching upon an extensive range of issues. This could lead to a segmentation of the society and could affect the outcomes of the elections and a referendum.