BRIDGING THE GAP - CONNECTING CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANI..
BRIDGING THE GAP - CONNECTING CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANISATIONS FROM EAST TO WEST
Start date: Aug 1, 2009,
This EVS group project mainlytakes place at the international secretariat of UNITED for Intercultural Action in Amsterdam (NL). It includes two volunteers, one from Belarus and one from Spain. Both volunteers will do a 12 months service at UNITED each. The involvement of two volunteers with different cultural and geographical background aims to enhance their mutual understanding, sharing of experiences and intercultural learning effect. In that way the project enables to identify and address a so called "East-West shift" concerning the different types and ways of civil society, active citizenship, social and political situation, historical backgrounds etc. The volunteers support the annual UNITED campaigns against racism and anti-semitism by empowering NGOs all over Europe, creating campaign/info material and by producing an action agenda for active youth groups and organisations in the working field of UNITED. Within this frame the volunteers also get active at local level in the Netherlands. Furthermore they are involved in the preparation and implementation of at least one international UNITED conference, with more than 70 participants from different European countries and with diverse cultural backgrounds. Active participation of the volunteers in the conference(s) is planned. The well-established information- and networking-tools of the pan-European UNITED network enable the volunteers to work in a professional environment. An educational factor Is the involvement in the local working-living community in Amsterdam, where the UNITED secretariat is a part from. Through local examples in the Netherlands the volunteers experience new methods and ways of community-building and empowerment of a common social responsibility in society. By working together within an intercultural/international team the volunteers are able to identify common European values and what it means to be an active European citizen.
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