This project aims to actively engage in the topics of anti-discrimination of Russianspeaking young people in Germany and collaborate in this regard internationally with partner organizations from Belorussia, Lettland and Czech Republic. The project takes place from 1.03.2019 to 1.09.2020 and consists of four phases. As of today the discrimination subject is still highly-charged and is at the same time of extraordinary relevance actively discussed by the world community. This is due to numerous human rights violations, not only among the developing countries but also in developed countries. Often the adolescents (especially those with a migrant background) experience unequal treatment and do not know how to respond in a proper way. Furthermore, discriminatory action among young people often happens unconsciously. Our project aims to encourage young people to reflect on their actions, to behave respectfully and to respond appropriately to discrimination. The project promotes solidarity and opposes misanthropic statements. The main purpose of the project is to increase the awareness by discussing discrimination topics and practicing different methods on how to jointly withstand and counteract the subject in the daily life and contribute to a sustainable change in our surrounding in long term. This project also aims to enhance equal treatment and support the social integration of young people with migration background while strengthening cooperation with our partner organizations. An important goal is also to stimulate an international dialogue and promote collaborative action on the European level by exchanging experience and knowledge with our partner organizations. The participants are young Russian speaking people in the age of 18 and 35 who have personally confronted discrimination and exclusion willing to share their experience and elaborate counter-active solutions in this respect. The project consists of four phases. First, a transnational project meeting is planned in Prague (Czech Republic), where on the one hand organizational details, on the other hand content-related aspects of the project are to be discussed by responsible participants (altogether 8 people). In the second part, the elaborated methods will be utilized nationwide as part of a transnational learning activity in Munich (Germany). The learning activity is a short-term get-together in which young people (40 participants in total) get to know different methods how to further communicate the main subject of the project in a determined and practice-oriented way. Their experiences of discriminationare to be portrayed and presented in artfully translation with dance- and theater performances, as well as in photo workshops. In addition, a project management workshop is offered in which the young specialists develop their own project ideas and learn to implement them. The knowledge acquired during the learning activity will be tested locally in the next part of the project, in which the participants carry out their own actions / projects in their home countries. Finally, a transnational project meeting will be held in Riga (Latvia) where the results of the whole project will be evaluated by responsible persons and further cooperation will be discussed. Since the project is being co-organized with other European organizations, our goal is to work together in order to contribute to European integration in general and to the Europeanisation of our organizations in particular. One important result of our project is the networking between our organizations on the one hand, and the development of such values as respect for human dignity, tolerance, solidarity and respect for human rights among the participants in the project on the other hand. In addition, the young people involved have great opportunities thanks to this project to gain new competences in the field of political education and to further develop and enrich their personality. We expect the participants to engage in follow-up activities on their own initiative upon acquired knowledge and valuable competenceswith the project activities.
The aim of our project was to sensitise young people and youth workers to the issue of discrimination and to jointly test methods with which this issue can be demonstrated and communicated. With our project, we wanted to promote equal treatment and social inclusion of young people, including those with a migration background, and strengthen cooperation with our partner organisations. We also wanted to support professionals and volunteers of our organisations in developing intercultural, social and project management skills and values such as respect for human dignity, tolerance and solidarity. The project was implemented by the following organisations: VRJD JunOst LV Bayern e.V. (Germany), ARTILT-D (Latvia), Modern Theatre Shatz (Czech Republic) and Consultation Centre for Contemporary International Practices and Their Implementation in Law Human Constanta (Belarus). The participants of the project were volunteers and professionals from our organisations on the one hand, and the general public, including young people and those interested in the topic of anti-discrimination, on the other. The project took place from 01.03.2019 to 31.12.2020 and consisted of four phases: - Transnational preparatory meeting in Prague (12.4-15.4.2019). At this meeting, project coordinators (8 people in total) discussed the organisational process and content-related aspects of the project. As a result of the preparatory meeting, the course of the project was concretised, the responsibilities of the coordinators were defined, the contents of the internal partnership agreement were elaborated and the programme for the learning activity was developed. - Anti-discrimination Academy in Munich and Seeshaupt (01.09-08.09.2019). During this learning activity, volunteers and professionals from our organisations learned creative methods, including shadow play, plastic theatre, creative laboratory, animation and photography, in a practical way and deepened their expertise in the field of human rights, discrimination, project management as well as informal education. - Regional Activities (01.11.2019-04.03.2020). The knowledge acquired during the learning activity was tested locally in this part of the project: Participants carried out their own actions/projects in their home countries. - Transnational final meeting via Zoom (23.11.2020). A comprehensive evaluation of the whole project was made, the possibilities of further cooperation were discussed and joint projects were planned. Within the framework of our partnership, we have succeeded in supporting the exchange of experiences, expertise and examples of good practice on the topic of anti-discrimination at the international level. We have learned a lot from and with each other and plan to organise joint projects and strengthen our cooperation even further. Professionals and volunteers from our organisations are already developing and implementing activities in the civil society sector with the help of the skills and expertise acquired in our project. Overall, our project results can be presented in figures as follows: Our project activities took place in four countries and eight cities. 40 volunteers from our organisations were able to acquire new competences and methodological knowledge during the learning activity. We were able to reach about 1300 people with our regional projects. Our events have hundreds of mentions on Instagram, Facebook and online media. To present results of the Anti-Discrimination Academy to the public, we held a public event in Munich. As part of the regional projects, more than ten events were held for volunteers of our organisations and general public, a film was made (www.youtube.com/watch?v=2reLmy4rZTw), a website was created (http://noroomfordiscrimination.tilda.ws/eng) and 1000+ photos were taken. We also distributed several t-shirts, notebooks, postcards and stickers with messages about equality and respect to the participants of our activities. All project results are freely accessible and available for a longer period of time. The Google folder "Library of the project 'Open Your Eyes'", which contains project results, can be accessed at the following link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zXFntr00lYWHdM10gfnoRtvuUNbfELir?usp=sharing. We are sure that the combination of human rights issues, creative methods, informal learning and intercultural exchange used in our project can provide unique answers to the challenges of today and tomorrow. This approach can be effectively used in other projects on a larger scale to promote the ideas of equality and anti-discrimination in different contexts.