YES! to Dialogue

Growing number of refugees and migrants in Europe has brought a significant change to our societies and posed entirely new challenges to NGO activists working with youth. While designing any kind of activity for youngsters, we need to take into consideration the cultural background of our beneficiaries and create a space where diversity is appreciated and where it is safe for participants to express themselves. At the same time we need to be aware that working with culturally diverse groups can, and often does have a big potential for conflicts coming from lack of understanding and if not addressed can also generate tensions leading to radicalization of attitudes. The proposed training course is a continuation of the "No to Discrimination" Erasmus+ project that have been coordinated by CAYNEX (Georgia) and Migrants&Minorities Network (Germany) and implemented in Georgia in November 2017. During this training we focused on identifying mechanisms of exclusion, discussed issues related to (cultural) identity and explored the theories behind stereotype creation. This time we would like to propose a training that is more focused on finding solutions rather than identifying challenges. Therefore, this project is to gather provide its participants with theories and practice of organizing non-formal educational activities in culturally diverse groups. We will focus on discovering how to plan activities that are based on appreciating differences, how to encourage participants to express themselves freely, how to monitor the learning process and its outcomes, and finally, how to address conflicts stemming from cultural differences. OBJECTIVES: - To provide participants with theories, practical tools and methods on organizing non-formal educational activities to be implemented in groups with diverse cultural background - To explore crucial elements that need to be taken into consideration, such as planning, learning progress monitoring, evaluation, risk assessment and conflict prevention/transformation - To discover the concept of intercultural dialogue and theories behind it, finding connections between them and the everyday practice of youth work - To create a network of like-minded organizations and individuals ready to cooperate on future activities aiming at promoting cultural diversity PARTICIPANTS PROFILE - Youth workers and youth leaders actively working for an NGO that aims for promoting intercultural dialogue/works with youth of migrant background - Motivated to increase their understanding of intercultural dialogue and learn new methods for promoting diversity - Ready to plan and implement concrete follow-up projects on a local level - Eager to share their experience and knowledge on working with youth with diverse cultural background - Interested in setting further co-operation with similar organizations from other European countries Being able to communicate in English fluently - Residents of Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece, Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine or Moldova