(Ysselsteyn)
3
Título: Peace Starts in Your Neighbourhood
Tema: Anti-racism/xenophobia, Social exclusion (in general), European awareness
Duração: 8 dias de 20-08-2011 a 27-08-2011
Idades dos participantes: Dos 15 aos 25 anos
Jovens portugueses: 6
Líderes portugueses: 1
Número total de participantes: 35
Idioma: Inglês
Países participantes: Portugal, Holanda, Bulgária, Turquia, Eslovénia
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Resumo: This youth exchange aims to give young people an opportunity to meet each other across borders and to discuss personal, cultural and national issues and how they can cause severe conflicts but also serve as a meeting place. In the summer of 2011 approximately 30 young people from the Netherlands and 4 other European counties will visit the German war grave cemetery for a week of workshops and activities. The young participants will demonstrate how friendship can bring former foes together and help not only the young generation but also the community to face the conflicts of the past and work for peace.
The large German cemetary from World War II, highlighted a historical conflict and we use it as a starting-point for discussion. ‘Peace Starts in your Neighbourhood’ will proceed to illustrate a case of peaceful conflict management, while focusing on questions of identity and ‘in-betweenness’.
Objectivos: The objective is to make young people question why national, cultural and personal borders exist and are important to people to such an extent that unauthorised crossing can lead to severe conflicts.
Yet multicultural conflicts are not fixed naturally, but with social and political constructions.
Furthermore, cultural conflicts can be peacefully managed and can provide an opportunity for intercultural interaction, provided there is awareness, mutual understanding and respect between individuals, cultures and nations. The aim is that the exchange will lead the participants to understand and respect cultural differences, to question prejudices and to gain an understanding of being individuals, not only part of a national or cultural group. The young people will also acquire tools for managing conflicts in personal life, especially conflicts related to cultural differences.
Ysselsteyn is the site of a German cemetery from World War II, and was chosen to highlight a historical conflict in which boundaries and neighbours produced disaster on a grand scale.
The cemetery will serve as a starting-point for discussions on the role of cultural identities and their peaceful management. The participants will produce a sort of Exhibition on the subject of identity, and in doing so – and in particular in conducting interviews and surveys – the participants will explore
questions of ‘in between ness’.
In addition to allowing young people to reflect upon the theme of peace starts in your neighbourhood, the exchange maintains some more general objectives:
- To build new connections and friendships between youth from different countries.
- To teach the young participants how to deal with conflicts in an intercultural context.
- To stimulate the young people’s interest in intercultural dialogue.
- To create an atmosphere of common understanding between young people representing different cultures, working styles and habits.
- To help the young participants gain an understanding of non-verbal communication and to give them an opportunity to practice a different language.
- To encourage young people to take initiative and to be responsible.
- To demonstrate the possibilities that Youth in Action brings to young people, and to illustrate how youth exchanges work and can be set up.
Alojamento: http://www.joc-ysselsteyn.com/englisch/startEN.html
Visita Antecipada de Planeamento
Duração: 2 dias de 30-05-2011 a 01-06-2011
País: 169
Cidade: Ysselsteyn
Participantes portugueses 1 Líder + 1 Jovem
Descrição: Theme:
The core theme of the exchange is ‘Peace Starts in Your Neighbourhood’, and the emphasis during the exchange at the German war grave cemetery will be on three sub-themes, famely ‘identity’,‘peaceful conflict-management’ and ‘tolerance’. The theme Peace starts in your neighbourhood to questions of identity at both the personal and the international level, and the exchange will discuss how your neighbourhood can serve as a meeting place between cultures and identities, and how they can also be a source of conflict. The exchange will draw attention to how various personal identities (concerning national belonging, language, gender, sexuality, race, political opinion or religious belief)can be a source of conflict, but also to how they can be peacefully managed and celebrated as a source of diversity. Tolerance will be shown to be an essential quality if identities and boundaries are to result in celebrations of diversity rather than hostility and conflict.
Practical Arrangements and Activities
We will stay at the JOC Ysselsteyn (province Limburg) at the German war grave cemetery.
Most of our indoor activities and workshops will take place at the JOC. We will eat many of our meals at the youth centre, where we will prepare the meals ourselves. Those students who are not on kitchen duty on any given day can use the free time to play sucker, beach-volley, table-tennis, etc….
The activities will consist of orkshops, discussions, awareness-raising exercises, physical activities and excursions to historical sites related to peace education. The main excursions planned for the exchange will give the youngsters new impulses for the dissemination product.
Special emphasis will also be placed on the making of a photo exhibition/ Film/ Exhibition on the theme peace education. Throughout the exchange, the youth will be actively involved in organising the activities and the activities themselves are designed to ensure active participation.
The theme ‘Peace starts in your neighbourhood’ will allow the young participants to reflect upon their own experiences of negotiating differences between people(s). We will discuss lessons from the past, and in this context explore ways to prevent and manage conflicts on individual, cultural, national
as well as international levels. The experiences of the exchange will serve as a starting point for many of these discussions.
Working methods include:Games/energizers; discussions/debates; Groupwork; Workshops; Rresentations; Role play; Making an exhibition; Excursions; Physical activities; Non-formal learning and social & personal development:
The youth workers will encourage the young participants to take an active part in thinking of activities on the theme of ‘peace starts in your neighbourhood’ and in organising the activities of the exchange.
The working methods will reflect an emphasis on ‘doing’ and ‘active experience’.
The young people will be stimulated to reflect upon and discuss their own opinions and experiences and, in doing so, to become aware of their own potential and possibilities, resulting in greater selfconfidence.
We will creatively use the personal experiences of the participants to encourage peer-topeer learning, and emphasis will be placed on learning on an emotional level. The theme of the exchange is designed to allow the participants to explore their own identities.
Participants will be actively involved
The participants from the host country will be actively involved in every stage of the planning of the project.
They have already held a couple of meetings to discuss accommodation and possible excursions, as well as to discuss how the exchange at the JOC Ysselsteyn will highlight and further develop the theme of ‘peace starts in your Neighbourhood’. Their suggestions have formed the basis for the sections in this application on objectives and themes. One young participant from each country will also participate in the advance planning meeting in May, thus ensuring that the schedule and activities of the exchange reflects the wishes of the young participants from all the countries involved and not only from the Netherlands.
The participants of the exchange have to prepare and implement many of the workshops and activities themselves. One evening each national group will also be responsible for one session of
the programme in which they will introduce their own culture, and possibly food, through making a national dish for the other participants to sample.
One of the core activities of the exchange will be to make an exhibition with a focus on ‘Peace’ and ‘Neighbourhood’. In editorial meetings the participants will decide on the nature and content of the dissemination product, and discuss progress. Working in small groups with participants from different countries, the young participants will conduct interviews or surveys, take photographs, draw cartoons, and create the other materials of which the exhibition will consist. This activity will give the participants an opportunity to practice their team-working skills during meetings and while working in
small groups; to practice their English language skills; to get to know participants from other countries; and to learn practical skills such as time-management.
Upon return to their home countries the participants will prepare and hold a presentation for young people from their own neighbourhoods about the exchange. In this way the whole community will learn from the exchange.
