Are We Equal
Start date: Jul 1, 2015,
End date: Feb 29, 2016
PROJECT
FINISHED
One of the fundamental rights of being an EU citizen is the right to equality, to be treated equally regardless of your gender, your race, your religion or any other difference you might have. Sadly though this is a right that not all EU citizens enjoy and till this day we see discrimination, bigotry and inequality. Our projects was developed by a group of young people who saw these inequalities in their communities and felt the need to develop a project to create more awareness of them and to bring young people of Europe closer together by exchanging ideas, concerns and feeling in order to allow each other to better understand each other and combat any inequality that might exist.
Not only do we see discrimination because of different beliefs but we also see this in different social status’s especially with regard to disadvantaged people. Discrimination – disadvantaged people and their rights. We often think that we all have the same rights and opportunities, but this is not always the case. Many young people in Europe have disadvantages, economic, health, social, geographic or cultural and we have seen that even as young people our society creates stereotypes about these people and we discriminate against them without even realizing it. For example Youth exchanges are open to all young people, but how easy is it for a person with economic difficulties to participate in such an exchange?
Our project will look at how we treat each other as humans, and we will debate the issues of equality in the EU for all young people. We will look at how we treat each other and see if we can find ways to make our EU more inclusive.
We will examine the basic human rights that accompany EU citizenship and also the behaviours and mentalities of young people of Europe to see how we as youth can overcome these differences but embracing the differences and learning from them and creating greater awareness of the rights we as humans have and how they need to be respected and preserved.
In order to achieve these goals the activities foreseen for the project are important. As the topic is significant to all the participants we anticipate that all the participants will be extremely active in the project offering as much as they can but also taking back as much as possible. Discussions and debates will give the youth a different perspective of the problems and perhaps even new methods of addressing these problems.
The project used a variety of non-formal methodologies to achieve the objectives of the project. Workshops will be designed to maintain a European dimension as all groups will be made up of at least one person from each country allowing for cultural learning during the workshops. Workshops are designed around the various subjects allowing the different youth to discuss the issues and work together to solve problems and share experiences.
Role playing will also be used to allow the participants to get another perspective of different problems. This has proven to be very successful as it allows for the youth to see common problems from the viewer’s point of view rather than the actor. This also allows for innovative ways showing problems.
Simulations are also done during the project, allowing people to take on roles which are opposite to their real roles. During the simulations the participants will take on roles to re-enact a real situation based on events and problems in the real world. The participants will work together in their different roles to solve problems and to find solutions to these problems. Important here is that the participants take on random roles which add additional learning tools as they need to think and act as the person they are simulating.
As a result we hope to give our youth the tools to understand the advantages and disadvantages of people today in this demanding society. We will help them to take advantage of various EU tools to be able to maximise their learning outcomes and ultimately bring them closer to antidiscrimination and equality.
They will also be able to discuss and evaluate problems with their peers and help them by giving them guidance and support when it is needed. We hope that the information gained during this project is shared within all the communities and especially with the youth of these communities so that more youth can increase their employability in each of the partner communities.
In addition to learning about the problems the youth will also exchange cultures and traditions and learn about the different cultures f from the different countries allowing for better understanding of each other and therefore creating a more unified EU, fighting xenophobia and also discrimination.
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