The main reason why we decided to implement project and its activity Youth Exchange with partner countries is to promote inter-cultural dialogue and have positive impact on young people at risk of exclusion and youth with fewer opportunities.
In contemporary Europe we often see discrimination based on religion, race, nationality and etc. Europe needs more tolerant and inclusive societies, by promoting common European values, enhance social integration, increase level of intercultural understanding and a sense of belonging to a community and to prevent violent radicalization of people at risk. Our Erasmus+ Youth Exchange is an effective instrument to promote the inclusion of people with disadvantaged backgrounds, including newly arrived migrants. We aim to build civil societies with tolerance, to create a space where people with different backgrounds will live peacefully.
The objectives of our project are:
– to provide tools to analyze various forms of discrimination , prejudice and intolerance;
– to promote the transformation of situations of intolerance and discrimination in opportunities and practical opportunities for active citizenship, social change, personal growth and increased participation of youth;
– to support intercultural dialogue among youth;
– to involve youth with fewer opportunities from various European and neighbor countries;
– to support young people with different cultural backgrounds to meet each other and make new relations and friendship;
– to get know each other’s cultures, traditions, uniqueness of all participant countries and history through music and art;
– to promote idea of tolerance and intercultural awareness among European youth;
– strengthening partnership cooperation among European Union and Eastern Partnership countries and empowering NGOs and young people.
Activities
There will be only one activity implemented during the whole project, which is ‘Youth Exchange with Partner Countries “Cultures Fest For Social Inclusion” will be implemented in “Hotel Borjomi Palace” in Borjomi, Georgia.
Youth Exchange will gather 35 youngsters from seven countries who will gather in Georgia in order to reflect on the meaning of intercultural dialogue, to talk and discuss its vitality for prevention of violent radicalization of young people.
Participants profile: age of participants are 18-30 as according to Erasmus+ Youth Exchange regulations, only exceptions are group leaders. All the participants are motivated and dedicated to explore topic of inter-cultural dialogue. Apart from being motivated and dedicated, all the participants have a demonstrated potential to act as multipliers and promoters of the workshops, sessions and activities implemented during the Youth Exchange in their respective local communities and beyond.
Youth with fewer opportunities:
1. Educational difficulties: young people with learning difficulties; early school-leavers; low qualified-adults; young people with poor school performance.
2. Cultural differences: immigrants or refugees or descendants from immigrant or refugee families, people belonging to a national or ethnic minority, people with linguistic adaptation and cultural inclusion difficulties.
3. Social obstacles: people facing discrimination because of gender, age, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, disability, etc. People with limited social skills or anti-social or risky behaviors, people in a precarious situation, young and/or single parents, orphans.
4. Geographical obstacles: people from remote or rural areas, people living in peripheral regions, people from urban problem zones, people from less serviced areas (limited public transport, poor facilities).
Impact
We agreed that Youth Exchange with partner countries will definitely have a visible and positive impact on different categories of beneficiaries, such as participating young leaders, participants with fewer opportunity and partner organizations, young people for who the partners organize activities, local communities of the participants, where they will be multipliers of project results and will exploit the knowledge, which they will acquire during the youth exchange. As a result we will have raised awareness and understanding of other cultures and countries by youngsters, by offering them the opportunity to build networks of international contacts, to actively participate in society and develop a sense of European citizenship and identity and, moreover increased the capacities, attractiveness and international dimension of organizations active in the education, training and youth fields so that they are able to offer activities and program that better respond to the needs. This would be investment in knowledge, skills and competences will benefit individuals, institutions, organizations and society as a whole by contributing to growth and ensuring equity, prosperity and social inclusion in Europe and beyond. Finally, Erasmus+ promotes the open access of project outputs to support learning and teaching, In particular, Erasmus+ beneficiaries are committed to make any educational resources and tools, which are produced in the context of projects supported by the Program. Thus, materials such as documents, media, videos or other types of materials will be freely available for the public under an open license. The materials will be easily accessible and retrievable without cost or limitations.
European Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the
Member States in a society in which pluralism, nondiscrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between
women and men prevail. Hence our project objectives are linked to fundamental values of European Union, Youth exchange “Cultures Fest for social inclusion” aims to build societies which are based on tolerance, respect and harmony, where people with different backgrounds or affiliations will live peacefully.
The project dates will be available soon.
