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‘How to survive the multicultural society? A practical training for young idealists’
Start date: Jun 1, 2015, End date: Dec 1, 2015 PROJECT  FINISHED 

Today’s sentiment of the society in Europe is troubled by fear of the future. With high rates of unemployment, more and more people tend to blame minorities, with slogans like ‘foreigners are taking our jobs!’. Xenophobia and discrimination are a serious issues in many multicultural countries. Taking into account the very recent extremist movements in EU and neighboring countries, raising xenophobia and Islamophobia, we consider it highly important to gather active young people, youth workers and activists from programme and partner countries to discuss the question of multicultural society, inter-religious and intercultural tolerance as well as think about some practical tools how to fight discrimination and combat extremism, which nowadays threaten democracies. The training course took place in Yerevan, Armenia and involved 30 youth workers, young leaders and multipliers from EU and non-EU countries. During 7 working days of the Training Course, we looked deeper into the problems of discrimination, extremism, nationalism, intolerance and intercultural misunderstandings. Why do we discriminate? How is it possible that almost everyone agrees that discrimination isn’t good and that we should stop it, but it still exist? And what are the possible solutions to stop people decimating each other? Apart from looking to discrimination in general, we also addressed the specific discrimination problems in the different countries where the participants come from. Which groups are discriminated in your country? Why? Are there any ideas how to stop that? What can we learn from the problems and solutions from other countries? And more importantly: how we can bring these solutions into practice when we have returned back home? Within the European Union there is a great variety of cultures, languages and religions. But this does not stop at the borders of the EU. We are surrounded by a number of counties who might not be members of the Union, but who have a strong connections with it through culture, language, religion and shared historical events. In 2004, the European Commission came with the initiative to create the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP), which should function as an instrument for foreign relations for the EU to work on their relationships with the country on the south and east side of its territories. It is our belief that it is also quite important to have a cultural and social connection with the neighbors around the EU and this will contribute to more understanding. Thanks to the meeting young people and active youth workers learned about the ways of living in other countries, different ways of thinking. In this way we can overcome differences and fight together against prejudice and xenophobia. That is why we involved both EU members states and Neighborhood countries. With this Training Course we aimed to empower youth workers and youth leaders with skills, knowledge and attitudes to play an active role towards an intercultural society. Our objectives were the following: • To analyze today’s multicultural society in different countries; • To gain knowledge on key concepts, such as stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination, extremism, intolerance; • To understand the causes of extremism and where it develops; • To analyze the European values and how they can be used in contrasting those phenomenas. • To discover the right attitudes towards an intercultural society; • To promote ‘theatre of the oppressed’ and ‘the human library’ as a tool; • To promote active citizenship, international dialogue and non-formal education. • To overview the European programs and create new projects related to the topic. In all participating countries, xenophobia and discrimination form a big problem. Especially the economic crisis contributes to this situation, when foreigners are blamed for stealling jobs. However, it doesn’t matter if you come from in de EU or from an ENP country, what language you speak or which religion you follow, there is discrimination everywhere. This project aimed at finding ways to combat it, by sharing experiences and by learning new tools. Our working methodology was based on non-formal education. Through exercises, discussions, presentation of examples of good practices, youth policies in the field of combating discrimination and promoting multiculturality, we wanted to encourage peer learning and inspire youth workers to discuss follow-up and take action in their own countries following the Training Course. Moreover, during the TC special attention was paid to developing skills and competencies of the participants that are needed when working with young people and empowering them to make real change in their local communities. In total, 30 people participated in the training course.
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