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What's Your Story?

2021-2-HU01-KA152-YOU-0000407942021Mobility of young peoplefinalized
Countries: HU|ME|NL|RO|BA|PT · Grant: €34,260
Bridging intercultural, intergenerational and social divideInclusion of marginalised young peoplePromoting LGBT+ equality

Objectives

Youth exchange "What's your story?" aimed at raising awareness about socially relevant topics such as discrimination of young people with fewer opportunities which leads them to social stigma and segregation, and in some cases finishes with suicide, because they do not know to whom to talk and how to address others about their problem. Young people are being educated, values of no hate and respect are part of the school curriculum, but the problem is still present, because there is no personal interaction. Youngsters finish their education, but it does not provide them the opportunity to talk to, for example, a person living with disabilities, or representative of any other group with fewer opportunities. Schools are mostly not inclusive themselves. This brings the basic division on "us" and "them", where we are "normal/usual" people, but they are different (often referred as not-normal or not-usual) and we should respect them because they are vulnerable. This is the serious problem, because in this case "us" becomes very superior, and "them" are vulnerable. We should emphasize that "them" includes LGBTQ members, all ethnic minorities, religious minorities and others, who society put on the edge and now either has no contact with them (hates them or feels pity for them) or, in case when they have contact, there is a better understanding and not hate and/or pity. This is the problem which we addressed through our project. The main tool for achieving that, which we have chosen in this project is “human library” method that brings together people who would usually not have a chance to meet and have deeper conversation with someone who is from group that is experiencing prejudices, social exclusion and/or stigma. This brings together many benefits, because an average person gets chance to have personal contact with someone he/she maybe has not the best opinion of and, in most of the cases, changes her/his mind. Personal connection is very powerful, and that’s exactly where we see the power of human library method which we wanted to promote among young people who got the necessary knowledge about the basics of antidiscrimination concept, discuss the problem of social stigmatization, inclusion, stereotypes and prejudices, as well as war and peace concepts. After that, we continued discussing human library method, which they could practice as we organized a human library in Gyöngyös together. Our objectives with this project were: - raising awareness amongst participants and (through involvement of local community and follow-up) the wider audience about exclusion and stigmatization, - promotion of EU values: inclusion and solidarity, - increasing the key competences of participants of the youth exchange, As well as: - To organize a youth exchange for 43 young people, who developed their skills and knowledge, - To organize human library in Gyöngyös, as well as another local events in the participating countries, after the youth exchange, having the main goal: bringing different social and ethnical groups of society together, overcoming prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination in society, and changing attitudes. - To promote human rights and peace building through media, by ensuring publishing articles after the youth exchange.

Project partners (6)