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Let's speak Worldish!
Let's speak Worldish!
Start date: Aug 1, 2015,
End date: Feb 29, 2016
PROJECT
FINISHED
The communication barrier was the reason for the fail of the people of Babylon to build a tower and reach the heaven.
Although only a legend probably, it resembles in the European project also, where building EU with it's values and principles can be really hard work because of the variety of languages and dialects existing on this continent.
Even in small countries, there are dialects so different that the people from the same country have problems to understand each other, and often there is misunderstanding.
For the creation of peaceful world, at first we should minimise the barriers. Thus, the centre of interest of our project are the Language barriers in the Intercultural learning, raising awareness about the issue and contribution towards a solution of this problem.
Therefore we have organised a training course on intercultural communication, called "Let's speak worldish".
Within the training we involved people coming from different countries and cultures, and thus to integrate and empower the young people who are trying to create a society free of prejudices and stereotypes leading to conflicts.
The training activity was delivered in 7 days, in Stockschloss, Trofaiach, between November 17th and 23rd 2015.
To reach the overall aim we have defined the following objectives:
- To improve and develop the communicational skills of the participants
- To raise awareness of language barriers for cultural interaction between the group
- To motivate and sustain communication among youth originating from different backgrounds.
- To initiate collaboration and communication between the institutions that work with young people in Europe
- To create friendly atmosphere where the participants can foster intercultural dialogue
- To motivate future partnerships and long term cooperation between the organisations participating
Duration:
All together the project lasted 7 months; the training activity in Trofaiach lasted 7 days.
Partner countries and number of participants:
Participants in the activity were from Austria, Armenia, Hungary, Poland, Estonia, Bulgaria and Turkey. It was planned that 4 participants will come from each partner, 3 youth workers with no international experience and 1 experienced and fluent in English, leader of the group. However, as we had problems with obtaining a visa for participants from Armenia and one person from Estonia cancelled in the last moment (due to illness), we changed the structure of participants - 2 from Armenia, 3 from Estonia, 5 from Poland and 6 from Austria. This was done after the approval of the national agency.
Activities: NGO fair, cultural night, field visit, orientation activities, case analysis activities, lecturing on language barriers and youth projects, real time practices on misunderstanding of language barriers, conversations, presentation of best practices, preparing reports of best practices, planning of future, creating drafts of the projects, partnership building activity, project simulation, discussions and negotiations, evaluation activities.
Methods: lectures, orientation meeting, group dynamic games, ice breakers and warmers, brainstorming, group discussions and bilateral discussions, lecturing, fieldworks, group presentations, workshop, individual work, brainstorming, problem analysis techniques, W-H questions...
Impact and results:we managed to build awareness about language barriers and found ways in how to overcome them, we were sharing good practices,we believe that cooperation and communication among the organizations increased, cultural awareness was created, participants became more conscious about Erasmus+ and youth projects. Participants improved their communication skills.
Long term benefit of this project is that it helped creating long term partnerships, which is one of the predispositions for a more peaceful Europe.