Due to the situation related to the migratory flow in Europe and neighboring areas, Oriel together with its Partners decided to undertake the project entitled "CAmminata per APendere - Hike to Learn based" on sport and social inclusion themes. We have noticed that European citizens are increasingly frustrated by daily changes: a new wave of hatred and discrimination has spread within our continent. Indeed, the number of racist crimes in Europe has grown, especially as regards crimes against Muslims, demonstrating the inability of part of the population to identify a peaceful solution to the problem. It was therefore an urgent need for us to reduce social tension, to increase the level of tolerance, to promote understanding and acceptance of everyone, despite cultural and religious differences. Our goal was to use sport as a development tool to encourage solidarity and social inclusion. An important question we asked ourselves was: how can sport be related to the concept of inclusion? As the ancient Greeks taught us, sport, through its universality, has been able to transcend cultural, political and socio-economic barriers and this makes it an extremely effective tool in an international context. Sports reflect different positive values of inclusion, solidarity and respect and for this reason many non-formal educational activities were carried out outdoors, in particular the activity of hiking played a key role throughout the exchange. Another spontaneous question we asked ourselves when we thought about the exchange was therefore: why hiking? First of all, hiking is both a group and individual challenge: the instinct for self-preservation fades once you understand the need to bring each companion to their destination. In this climate it was quite easy to analyze issues that are considered sensitive because the sense of inclusion that the participants experienced led them to stop hiding behind masks, consequently increasing the emotional involvement and effectiveness of the educational path. Secondly, we wanted to relate these activities with the current international situations relating to refugees who have walked mountains and crossed seas to achieve peace in Europe. We wanted to ensure that young people were able to identify with their lives in the most empathic way possible. This analogy has helped us achieve even better results than hoped for and served as a starting point for thinking more deeply about the current situation in Europe. In our path, we have focused on the pedagogical dimension of sports used in a non-formal way and contextualized to cause positive social change: learning is based on the principles and practice of non-formal education taking into consideration the needs, motivations, and various personal experiences of the participants. In addition, the title "CAmminata per APendere" was chosen because we combined sports with specific educational methods, analyzing our behavior as a group and addressing four other themes that we consider fundamental: Knowledge, Friendship, Environment, and Peace (CAAP). The specific objectives of this project were: 1. Achieve personal development that has helped us to understand, understand and reflect on ourselves, on our behaviors, and the behavior of the rest of the community; 2. To challenge our perception of the structures of society when these undermine social inclusion and tolerance; 3. Overcoming stereotypes towards different religions; 4. Increase awareness of the concept of discrimination; 5. To amplify the knowledge on inclusive attitudes and to initiate an intercultural and interreligious dialogue; 6. Understanding the link between culture, sport, and their intercultural aspects; 7. Increase the sense of empathy towards other people. Within the specific objectives of the Erasmus + program were those of combating poverty and social exclusion by 2020. Particular emphasis was placed on reaching the most marginalized young people, on promoting diversity, on intercultural and interreligious dialogues, and on common values of freedom, all themes that perfectly reflected the objectives of our project.
Oriel together with the partners initiates the project "Hike to Learn" which is based on sports, outdoor education & social inclusion. The title "CAmminata per APprendere" has been chosen because we will combine the sports and the hiking with specific methods, analyzing our behavior and the important qualities related to our main theme: Knowledge, Friendship, Environment and Peace. We have noticed that European citizens are more frustrated because of the daily changes: a new wave of uncontrolled hate and discrimination is spreading again within our continent. The number of racist crimes in Europe has indeed grown, especially as regards the so-called hate crimes against Muslims, showing in this way how people can’t find a pacific way to face the immigration issues. There is an urgent need to reduce social tensions, to raise the level of tolerance, to promote the understanding & to accept each other despite the cultural & religious differences. Our aim is, with the help of sport as development tool, to foster solidarity and social inclusion. We are combining dynamic lifestyle with non-formal education methods in youth work. The specific objectives of this project are: 1.To reach personal development which helps to understand ourselves and reflect on own behavior & behavior of others. 2.Challenge the perception of the structures within our society that undermine social inclusion or foster discrimination 3.Overcoming the stereotypes of different religious 4.To raise awareness on the topic of discrimination 5.To build a broader understanding of what an inclusive attitude means and to start intercultural and inter- religious dialogue 6.To understand the connections between culture and sport and to understand the intercultural aspects of sport 7.To raise the sense of empathy towards other people.