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Diversity Weeks

2019-1-DE04-KA105-0179602019Youth mobilityfinalizedGood practice
Countries: DE|RO|TR|PL|CZ|SI|ES|EL|EE|UA|LT · Grant: €195,101.2
Access for disadvantagedInclusion - equityDisabilities - special needs

Objectives

International youth work has the mission to enable all young people - regardless of their origin, their ethnic and cultural affiliation, their gender or their impairments - to have access to educational opportunities and equal participation. In other words: international youth work has an inclusive educational mission. This is based on human rights and youth policy and is also an important priority of the Erasmus+ program. The project "Diversity Weeks" set itself the goal to contribute to the implementation of this mission through the realization of four international inclusive youth meetings. The following activities were planned and implemented: A1 - The III International inclusive dance festival in IJBS Krzyzowa/ Poland, with the participation of partners from Poland, Germany, Spain, Greece, Slovenia, Romania, Estonia, Turkey, Ukraine and the Czech Republic. A total of 101 people were involved in the activity, among them 44 participants with fewer opportunities than their peers due to disabilities and social, geographical and economic disadvantages. A2 - Inclusive International Youth Exchange Building Bridges goes Greece: Diversity in Prinos/Thassos, Greece. Here partners from Poland, Germany, Romania, Greece, Estonia, Ukraine and the Czech Republic participated. A total of 95 people were involved here, including 46 young people with fewer opportunities. A3 - Inclusive International Youth Exchange Bridging: Identity in IJBS Krzyzowa/Poland with the participation of partners from Poland, Germany, Romania and Ukraine. Here 57 people were involved. Among the participants 46 young people with fewer opportunities. A4 - Inclusive International Youth Meeting Bridging: Emotions at the Education and Meeting Center Schloss Trebnitz with partners from Germany, Poland and Estonia. Here 47 people were involved, among them 33 young people with fewer opportunities. The aim of all the activities was to implement inclusive and diversity-sensitive educational opportunities for young people, which were characterized by the diversity of their participants and wanted to create and promote a space for encounter, dialogue and joint learning processes between very different young people of our society. This required reaching and involving different groups of young people through the partner organizations. At the same time, it was an important goal to reduce participation barriers to the maximum, so that young people participated effortlessly, fairly and equally, regardless of their impairments and social barriers. In terms of social inclusion, the projects involved young people with and without disadvantages and disabilities. As important as it was to reduce barriers to participation, it was also important to avoid positive discrimination and deficit-oriented approaches. Young representatives of our society were given the opportunity to engage in dialogue, to approach and change perspectives. Together they dealt with social diversity as well as individual and social identity. By involving experienced language mediators and workshop leaders, it was possible to create pedagogical activities tailored to the target groups, in which the young people could engage with each other, work and learn together, and learn more about each other. Through the diversity in the groups, there were different levels on which contact and relationships could develop, which led to social lines of difference, such as age, disability, gender, slowly dissolving and hardly playing a role among the participants. Instead, spaces emerged in which commonalities shaped relationships, communication was possible despite language differences and abilities, and different ways of thinking, acting and being aroused curiosity to learn and understand more. One phrase that was heard again and again from the participants but also from the professionals was, "It could be so simple." - What was meant was the wish for a life in a more open, inclusive society in which everyone can participate equally according to their individual possibilities and abilities and is valued.

Project partners (23)