Search for European Projects

Greek-German Youth Exchange
Start date: Jun 20, 2014, End date: Dec 19, 2014 PROJECT  FINISHED 

Due to the bad economical situation in Greece and the austerity measures given by the EU, the Greek-German relationship seems to worsened. Many people in Greece have the feeling that they are being “patronized” and badly treated by “the Germans”, while many people in Germany have the feeling that they are being exploited by “the Greeks”. These images are reinforced by an often indifferent tabloid press: Greeks, who equate Germans with Nazis at demonstrations against the austerity policy, or reports according to which Greeks are taking a rest on the German taxpayers expense, stir up the atmosphere. Meanwhile, talks with, for example, young people show that there is hardly any knowledge about their contemporaries. Additionally there is, asissted by the economically extremely complicated situation, the strengthening of nationalist and right-wing-extremist groups, who have been making life extremely difficult for Jewish communities in Greece. In Germany the series of murders by the NSU made the existence of violent rightwing-extremist groups once more cruelly clear. In this context the youth department of the Jewish community Thessaloniki and the Memorial and Educational Site House of the Wannsee Conference are organising an youth exchange between 16 Greek and 16 German young people of different origin, who will be dealing with questions of their common shared past and a shared future. By dealing with the themes of national socialist occupation and the consequences of this for both societies, and by examining current antidemocratic phenomena, the group should become aware of the value of democratic structures and the importance of defending them, and at the same time the European ideals, mutual solidarity, mutual understanding, will be shown – The process of European unification will be presented as an alternative and genuine solution for both sociological and economical problems. The participators will act as disseminators of the information in their own environments. They will then be able to influence the public discourse in their environment through differing publicly visible actions.
Up2Europe Ads

Coordinator

Details

1 Partners Participants