Strategic partnership “Take Action - Together Against Discrimination!” is about promoting quality youth work with focus on social inclusion and fight against discrimination. Project focuses on exchange of good practices between partners and lasts for period of 2 years 07/2020 - 06/2022 and involves local activities and international mobilities. There will be 3 transnational partners meetings, involving in total 30 staff and board members of organizations. 2 short term staff trainings will involve in total 46 youth workers and 10 jobshadowing (short term training) will involve 10 youth workers. Participating countries are Estonia, Lithuania, Romania, Greece, Turkey, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Iceland. The aim of the project is to raise the capacity of partner organizations to work on diversity issues. To achieve this we have set following objectives: Train youth workers through staff trainings to use identity building as tool for fighting against prejudice-based discrimination Raise capacity of partner organizations to tackle radicalization of young people and to prevent hate speech online and offline via exchange of good practices and jobshadowing Train 5 local NGOs in each partner county to be able to work with youngsters on following issues: human rights, gender issues, online safety, hate speech and discrimination Carry out 135 workshops on diversity issues involving directly more than 3000 young people in participating countries Create 9 new activity plans for anti discrimination education, test them and add them to format which allows other organizations to use them in their work Raise the capacity of partner organizations to use peer to peer methodology for inclusion and promotion of diversity internationally and on local level with youth and youth workers We expect that all partners have clear understanding how to work on the topic of anti-discrimination and what activities/methods they can use with different target groups. We have trained tyouth workers who are able to work on identity building as tool for preventing stereotypes and prejudice based discrimination and to be able to use non-formal methodology with youth workers/youngsters to challenge hate speech online and offline, cyber violence and bullying. We plan, that as result of project, we will have trained at least 5 local organizations in each country (totally 45) involving at least 3 youth workers from each (135 in total) and have carried out locally with local partners via 15 workshops involving 300 young people (totally 135 workshops and 3000 young people impacted in 9 countries). Via additional country specific local activities we plan to involve another 225 youngsters per country, so totally more than 2000. As result of the project, we plan create 9 workshop plans, which have been tested by our youth workers and can be used in work of anti-discrimination. This material and other made during the partnership will be uploaded on common online platform, where we will also share our personal experiences of diversity workshops and cultural specifics. On regular basis we will share on platform our experiences of local and international activities between partners and with other interested stakeholders (for example other NGOs, youth centres). In each country we will organize event to disseminate the results of the project.
The aim of the project was to raise the capacity of partner organizations to work on diversity issues. We wanted to train youth workers through staff trainings to use identity building as tool for fighting against prejudice-based discrimination. Raise capacity of partner organizations to tackle radicalization of young people and to prevent hate speech online and offline via exchange of good practices and jobshadowing. One possible solution was that youth organizations should take more active role in promoting diversity and inclusion. Another objective was to train local NGOs in each partner county to be able to work with youngsters on following issues: human rights, gender issues, online safety, hate speech and discrimination. Carry out more than 100 workshops on diversity issues involving directly more than 3000 young people in participating countries. Create at least one new activity plan per partner organization for anti discrimination education, test them and add them to format which allows other organizations to use them in their work. Raise the capacity of partner organizations to use peer to peer methodology for inclusion and promotion of diversity internationally and on local level with youth and youth workers.
We, as the leading organization, have been working on diversity issues for many years both on a local level and internationally. Within those years we have collaborated with several partners who are facing similar issues. We saw together a need to address diversity issues and inclusion on a strategic level. We have seen internationally that the understanding of diversity [by this we mean understanding one's identity, understanding the effects of stereotypes and prejudices in connection to discrimination and violence (including online violence and cyberbullying), understanding of human rights, hate speech, gender issues etc] is quite limited among young people, but also among youth workers and society as a whole. This means that inclusion of various groups is more difficult and there is resistance from different sides. Young people are more likely to radicalize, there are more cases of hate speech and this all can lead to violence and exclusion. Cultural differences and the lack of information about other ethnic groups backgrounds and habits is another topic that brings disagreements in society. Definitely the problem pops up in rural areas shows our partners experience.