The past year has been marked again by rising instability in the Western Balkan (WB) region. This ranges from large scale ongoing protests in Serbia and Bosnia, increasing tensions over borders, trade disputes and the closing of markets and unsanctioned violence against journalist. All of these factors pose significant impediments to the economy, democratic processes, the wellbeing of individuals and also to the process of joining the EU. One of the key underlying reasons behind the tensions plaguing WB is an ever-increasing torrent of nationalism that characterizes local and regional politics and the relations between neighboring countries. Extremism based on national, ethnical or religious background is one of the most evident destabilizing factors both in the EU and in the WB. Thus, the consortium designed Understanding and Challenging Nationalist Extremism — a project that uses a bottom-up approach to tackling nationalist extremisms through educating youth workers (from the EU and WB), designing a toolkit and developing non-formal education methods, through which youth workers from partner countries will empower youth to address cases of extremism. Many large-scale top-down initiatives overlook the fact that virulent nationalism is entrenched in culture and the most effective long-term strategy for diminishing it is to make it culturally less acceptable and for this to succeed, the key target group is youth. The consortium includes 11 organisations from 10 countries coming from the EU and neighboring regions.Objectives:- Increase the level and intensity of cooperation between programme countries and partner countries from WB. - Create a robust youth anti-extremism platform focused on the WB but working with a decidedly inter-regional and trans-sectoral perspective- Increase the capacities of youth organisations based in WB.- Increase the competences of youth workers in WB, the EU and beyond.- Educate youth about recognizing and opposing extremism.- Design a toolkit for educating youth about nationalist extremism and enable youth leaders to better do this.Activities: - 2 transnational project meetings- 3 mobilities of youth workers (at least 24 participants per activity)- 1 youth exchange (at least 58 participants)Outputs:- toolkit- 1 international conference- 3 webinars- webpage- 5 cultural events / public interventions- 4 press conferences
Project objectives:- Increase the level and intensity of cooperation between programme countries and partner countries from WB - Increase the capacities of youth organisations based in WB- Increase the competences of youth workers in WB, the EU and beyond; - Educate youth about recognizing and opposing nationalist extremism;- Educate the general public about nationalist extremism in their country and ways of opposing it- Promote more open and argument supported discourse
Rising instability in the Western Balkan (WB) region ranges from large scale ongoing protests in Serbia and Bosnia, increasing tensions over borders, trade disputes and the closing of markets and unsanctioned violence against journalist. All of these factors pose significant impediments to the economy, democratic processes, the wellbeing of individuals and also to the process of joining the EU.
<< Background >> Rising instability in the Western Balkan (WB) region ranges from large scale ongoing protests in Serbia and Bosnia, increasing tensions over borders, trade disputes and the closing of markets and unsanctioned violence against journalist. All of these factors pose significant impediments to the economy, democratic processes, the wellbeing of individuals and also to the process of joining the EU. << Objectives >> Project objectives:- Increase the level and intensity of cooperation between programme countries and partner countries from WB - Increase the capacities of youth organisations based in WB- Increase the competences of youth workers in WB, the EU and beyond; - Educate youth about recognizing and opposing nationalist extremism;- Educate the general public about nationalist extremism in their country and ways of opposing it- Promote more open and argument supported discourse << Implementation >> Transnational project meetings & mobility activities: - Kick-Off meeting (KS)- MYW - What is nationalist extremism, its relation to populism and their role in the shaping of contemporary WB and EU (SI)- MYW — Populism, fake news and social media and their impact on youth and nationalistic extremism (RS)- MYW – Building and sustaining multi-ethnic communities in tension areas (AL)- YE – Bridging the Ethnic Divide (MNE)- Final Conference (BIH) << Results >> Main project outputs (available on https://nationalist-extremism.si/):1) Toolkit; a collection of good practices dealing with the fight against nationalist extremism 2) Webinars; a series of three multimedia webinars3) Final conference that has addressed the crucial aspects of nationalistic extremism4) Webpage: a dedicated webpage https://nationalist-extremism.si/