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Shaping a Europe without prejudices: how to solve the puzzle of cultural diversity?
Start date: May 1, 2015, End date: Feb 29, 2016 PROJECT  FINISHED 

The context of the project was directly connected with concrete situations we experienced as an organisation, during years of working with young Europeans and those training them. Youngsters attending international projects (but sometimes, also youth workers!) come with many stereotypes and prejudices about each other. After interacting during project activities, participants usually go home with a more realistic image about their fellows. Often they make strong statements about the most important lesson they would take home: "I learnt not to judge people from other countries before I listen to their opinions" or "I learnt not to judge people based on their appearance and nationality". Young people need to understand the cultural diversity in Europe and to look beyond a limited reality shaped by stereotypes, they need to enrich their horizons and get the opportunity to discover their European fellows the way they are. This way they will be able to judge realistically. When they do that through direct learning, their vision and manner of looking at other Europeans will be forever changed. In their turn, youth workers need to be aware of the manner in which stereotypes and prejudices are influencing the youngsters they are working with. They need skills helping them identify the issue and deal with it accordingly. They should acknowledge the negative consequences of these attitutes on youth projects, but also on the young people general development. The project had two main activities: a youth exchange and a training. Both activities focused on the issue of stereotypes and prejudices young people have about each other when they meet in international projects. Both activities generated concrete learning outcomes at the end: participants to the youth exchange created a puzzle of cultural diversity, while participants to the training put together a quiz. They could use the testing method in the future, in order to measure the (unconscious) level of thinking in stereotypes among youngsters and to determine how prejudiced they are. The puzzle pieces produced during the exchange were discussed during the training.The results were integrated in the discussions about creating the quiz. We combined the two activities in one project as we thought it was equally important for youngsters to understand that people have negative attitudes, to explore stereotypes and prejudices and develop skills on breaking them, as it was for those involved in working with youngsters to recognise stereotypical and prejudicial attitudes, to challenge them and to become aware of their negative consequences in youth work. The exchange took place in The Hague during a period of seven days, between 18 and 25 September 2015 and it was attended by 35 people from five countries: Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, Norway and The Netherlands. The training also took place in The Hague, during a period of six days, between 30 October and 6 November 2015. It was attended by 23 participants from Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, Norway and The Netherlands, out of which two trainers and two facilitators. All the activities and methods used during the programme were in line with the process of non-formal education. Every activity was based on the learning-by-doing principle, concentrating on finding a link to concrete aspects of daily life and stimulating participants to contribute with their personal opinions and imagination. This way, youngsters and youth workers could actively participate, communicate and exchange opinions with each other, working in groups or reaching common conclusions. They had to apply in practice the lessons and experiences learnt and they were asked to reflect and give feed-back at the end of each day. The main working methods used during the project were: thematic workshops, team work, discussions, debates, individual work, exercise, presentations, experience exchange, simulation, role-play, interview, outdoor activities, dialogue – all with the aim of learning by experience in a non-formal educational framework while keeping balance between theory and practice. By attending the programme, participants realised they had a lot of prejudices about each other. As a direct result of joining the programme, they understood the mechanisms through which stereotypes function and got a fresh new image on other Europeans, based on direct knowledge instead of prejudices.They became more aware of stereotypes and prejudices and developed skills to act against them. Through the lessons, skills and competencies gained in The Hague, we hope that participants could bring their small contribution at local level, transmitting appropriate information about the cultural diversity in Europe. We hope they will use the project results in the future, preventing or correcting other youngsters and people in general when they make stereotyped statements.

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