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Europäische Spurensuche
Start date: Jul 15, 2014, End date: Oct 15, 2014 PROJECT  FINISHED 

In the early 90s the world became aware of the dramatic situation in Rumania, especially in regards to the miserable conditions in the second biggest Children?s Home under the Ceausescu?s regime. Volunteers from Bautzen (Germany) started aid-transporters but soon they realised that this was not enough. Every year many youths were sent out in the streets of Europe without any kind of support or social skills. In order to tackle this situation German Volunteers developed concepts on site to facilitate and encourage interactions between youth with different social and ethnic background. Until 2007, over 70 young people spent two years as voluntary service in the Children?s Home. One of the biggest issue was, that the youths were released from the institution without any kind of support, social skills nor they knew hot to start a ?normal? life in the society. They had to learn how to escape social exclusion and to acquire those necessary social skills for integration in the civil society. One of the successful projects has been the Summer camp. Since 2005 this project has been supported by the Saechsische Jugendstiftung and can be described as follow: 25 young people from Germany and 25 from Rumanian, plus 10 adult volunteers, drive to a wonderful valley in the Carpathians where the only resources are a meadow, a stream and a load of wood from sawmill. Working together, the youths build a camp from scratch with all necessary facilities from toilettes to seminar rooms. Here they learn how to democratically interact with each other; they increase self-consciousness, respect for others, they learn how to level cultural and social disparity, how to deal with racism and to overcome language barriers. They also have the chance to discuss European identity and to learn about the European citizenship. Many participants from Rumania are socially and economically disadvantaged whereas youth coming from Germany are characterized by a more heterogenic background. A gender balance under the participants is ensured at the selection?s stage. The very first days in the camp are dedicated to build the facilities making the living as comfortable and efficient as possible; a volleyball and soccer fields are also arranged to ensure sport activities as well as seminar rooms where learning activities will take place. Getting the chance to interact with locals, the German youth learns also about the every day life in the small village near the camp discovering a European environment very different from their hometowns. Furthermore, the youth will be encouraged to gain knowledge in history and customs of the region and discuss it in seminars and workshops. The central element of this project consists in working together, overcome difficulties and share common targets. More over, informal and non-formal learning activities are the methodology used in order to provide the participants with knowledge, communicative competences and give them the opportunity to share experiences. This project intends to increase self-empowerment and self-esteem as well as stimulate a sense of initiative and to promote a greater understanding and responsiveness to social, linguistic and cultural diversity. The project targets long term outcomes as well, which consist in establishing a deeper and wider European consciousness and promote competences and capabilities for the youth?s daily life
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