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Diversity means equality

2020-2-BG01-KA105-0794252020Youth mobilityfinalized
Countries: BG|EL|UA|JO|IT|RO · Grant: €18,831
Social dialogueEthics, religion and philosophy (incl. Inter-religious dialogue)Gender equality / equal opportunities

Objectives

The main aim of the project is to eliminate discriminatory stereotypes in society, such as racial, religious, ethnic, aged, gender, and sexual-oriented, through intercultural youth dialogue, and further promoting non-discrimination in contemporary society. By creating this project, a team of organizers wants to improve the situation in society in different ways, such as youth dialogue, working with the concept of discrimination, debunking stereotypes, exploring ways to combat discrimination, and helping yourself and others in similar situations. Organizers would like participants to make first steps in combating discrimination, pursuing the following objectives: -to improve the level of awareness in the field of equality for spreading knowledge that can help in creating a tolerant and non-violent society, support young people in the desire to deepen their knowledge in this sphere; -to encourage young people to take an active part in public, city, and country life, and promote participation in similar projects related to non-formal learning and anti-discrimination; -to promote an active international dialogue and self-development of each individual, to improve the level of knowledge in the field of racial, religious, ethnic, aged, gender and other discriminatory processes; -to share the knowledge of the home country and the discriminatory situation there through intercultural dialogue, and increase awareness of Erasmus + programs; to create projects based on the received information to share knowledge among young people at the dislocation of the participants. This project brings together organizations that are already active in the field of youth work and are currently working with youngsters on the line of being excluded from various social groups. All the partner organizations share the need of having preventative activities through which youngsters would experience inclusion, improve their social skills as well as gather different forms of inclusion that they could bring back to the organization. We see that it is crucial to give chance to these youngsters to be out of their usual setting, connect with youngsters from other countries and most importantly to develop the habit of participation and involvement. Thus through "Diversity means equality" we address ourselves to the topics of social inclusion and active youth participation. While working with this topic previously we discovered that spending time in a natural environment and delivering workshops for one another brings a lot of joy into the process and creates different ways of learning. Changing the usual context and giving chance to these youngsters to learn from one another creates a different approach towards learning and participating in social situations. When it comes to workshops with playing frame, dissimilarities (values, education, communication styles, etc.) become less important and the focus shifts to fun and togetherness. Moreover, the simple circumstance of living and working in an international environment for a couple of days has already many learning points that we would like to take into account when designing our method and program. Our intention is to create a playful setting where youngsters from mixed backgrounds can discover integration on different levels. On a personal level, youngsters will experience living and working together with others in a dynamic setting that will boost their cooperation skills and create the habit of participating. On a group level, they will exchange different forms and practices of including each other. On a community level, youngsters will come up with simple and practical ways of how they can include other youngsters back home. This project brings together 6 different organizations including the hosting organization, Active Bulgarian Society. During the YE the participants will get familiar with the topic of discrimination and improve their social skills by exchanging their own knowledge, by getting in touch with the local community, by arranging simple tasks (such as preparing meals, taking care of the accommodation), by playing and organizing various outdoor games and activities in order to improve their skill of cooperation and discover different ways of working within a group and by facing different situations in which they can see the impact that their active participation can bring. We are going to work with games in a natural context in order to create a new and playful approach to social inclusion. This working method comes from our vision and experience that learning can only happen when excitement and fun are included, playing games is a simple way to invite people to learn and discover.

Project partners (6)