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Human library : Оpen your heart

2019-2-BG01-KA105-0627482019Youth mobilityfinalized
Countries: BG|PL|HU|IT|ES · Grant: €0
Inclusion - equitySocial dialogueInternational cooperation, international relations, development cooperation

Objectives

The project “Human Library: open your heart” has the purpose to solve a problem that we identified among the partners involved:Bulgaria,Italy, Spain, Poland and Hungary. We realized that the young people in our communities are not aware about other cultures, are marginalized from Europe and there is a lack of information that can help them to open their horizons and to be curious of other cultures. After we discussed in our team, composed by 5 young youth workers, we decide to work on our common need and we formulate a clear problem in order to focus our ideas: “Young People are not aware about other cultures, and don’t have enough competences to understand diversities and accept them”. We found a method to go further young people’ fears and worries: the “Human Libraries”. We decided to adapt this method for our project because it combines two aspects: it helps youth to express themselves and on another hand it gives the opportunity to listen others and take inspiration by the experiences of peers. In fact, an “human library” is a place of exchange, meeting and sharing; as all libraries have books and readers. The book in the living library is a person who wants to tell and to share his story. In a “living library”, the reader can choose a book to read; this book will be a person who wants to share his life experience. The reader, through active listening, will have the opportunity to have a discussion and dialogue on the subject of the book that he choose. The idea of this project comes from the need to increase young people’s awareness of social issues and to promote intercultural exchange through real life stories. Young people involved in the project will be actors of stories and will embark their growth path based on tolerance, cultural exchange, and listening to diversity. The mobility is thought for a duration of 7 days: during the first part of the exchange, the young people will experiment new methods to develop their listening skills, to improve their critical thinking and other activities helpful to give them the opportunity to acquire greater awareness of themselves. During the second part of the exchange, participants will experience a real cultural exchange through the synergy between the life stories of young people participating in the project and tales of experiences from local people. The dialogue among all people involved in the project will be a metaphor and a symbol of union and will allow the participants to break down the social barriers in which they are too often trapped in. At the end of the exchange, we will organize a cultural event, open to the public, and during this the participants will have the opportunity to become books of the “Human Library”. Each young people will have the opportunity to tell and make available his experience to the audience; the story will be as a source of growth and reflection for the readers. The active participation of the youngsters will be the prerogative of the project and in a non-formal and informal environment the participants will be protagonists of their actions and their activities. However, the choice to take part in the library as a book, during the event, will be entirely spontaneous based on the confidence of the individual. During the activity days, the participants will have the opportunity to experience different types of Learning, by non-formal activities. The library is a place of culture, an exchange of knowledge; among young people of the new generations, libraries are difficult to understand because they are difficult to far youth’ needs. The choice to create a space to reading, has a metaphorical sense: it represents the dual aim of raising young people's awareness of social issues and at the same time the purpose to bring new generations to libraries, making these places dynamic in which young people can be actors actives and not just visitors. In the digital age in which we live we can not ignore the digital skills of young people; in order to create a synergy between libraries and digital tools, we will invent and realize a digital “human library” with a catalog and books. We will create a digital platform where we will publish young people’ stories and testimonials, as books. All the books will be written and published in English because the language barrier will not be an obstacle, but an opportunity that will allow all young Europeans to consult books from stories of young people like them. Throughout this project we want to help young people to discover new cultures, in an intercultural environment and develop their competences like intercultural dialogue, social inclusion and acceptance of cultures, awareness about youth environment and develop new tools for an intercultural exchange. We will work on improving their attitudes, skills and knowledge by specific methods and activities.

Project partners (5)