Mekonnen Mesghena heads the Migration & Diversity Department of the Heinrich Böll Foundation. For several years, he was a spokesman for the „Third World Journalists Network“ and co-founded „Media Watch Germany“ in 1993. He worked as a freelance journalist for several years. He regularly writes, lectures and moderates international conferences on the topics of migration policy, flight and asylum, opportunities for participation, diversity policy and racism. In spring 2013, his initiative to remove racist expressions from children’s books (also known as the „children’s book debate“ or „N-word debate“) triggered a fierce media debate about racism, language and „censorship“ that went far beyond the borders of Germany.