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OVERCOMING INVICIBLE BORDERS; PATHWAY TO A SOCIETY OF EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES
Start date: Jul 1, 2014, End date: May 31, 2015 PROJECT  FINISHED 

Prior to the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, the European Communities treaties provided guarantees for the free movement of economically active persons, but not, generally, for others. Despite the removal of physical boundaries, nations have not fully succeeded in overcoming invincible barriers which are much stronger than difficult to cross than physical borders. There was an assumption that once borders are lifted, intercultural integration will happen on its own and peradventure people will see themselves as fellow Europeans rather nationals of European countries. These normative assumption of equal opportunities has not panned out like that. The new wave of extreme nationalism and xenophobic attacks in European capitals are major cause for concerns. The theme of the training is Overcoming invincible borders; Pathway to society of equality. The training will be held in Brighton for a period of eight days to between 17th to 24th of August, 2014. The training will be facilitated through experiential learning methodologies and open space methods will be used to conduct the reflective sessions and evening focus groups. The participation is broad and diverse including participants from Italy, Ukraine, U.K, Hungary, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Norway , Poland and Romania. The participants targeted are youth workers, youth leaders and youth managers and youth leaders from disadvantaged background. The design of the content of the training project was carried out through learning needs resource assessment so as to ensure that the project meets participants overall objectives. The training will specifically build the competencies of participants on skills for working in a multicultural space, change management and theory of change,team building and facilitation skills ,cultural mapping, leadership skills, project management and civic rights and conflict transformation. The team of the programme will be integrated into non-formal and open space technology methods easily through river of life tracker and time line. There will be reflection sessions to appraise learning progress and this will also give real time evaluation processes to improve quality of delivery and where necessary make changes. The project will be part of the part to re-inventing the passion that created historic treaty of free movement and expanding free movement beyond border but also understanding of it.One of such set backs was the 10th of February, 2014 referendum in Switzerland which backed the re-introduction or cap on EU migration. This was achieved by the slimmest of margins splitting the country into two. Such referendums are planned in other countries including U.K. Efforts like these erodes the gains of what EU stands for because over the years trade seems to have been prioritized over integration and intercultural learning thus allowing people to fully embody the letters and spirit of Maastricht treaty. The project seeks to mobilise young people whose present and future belongs to a functioning and integrated Europe to activiely participate in issues that will affect the present and future by getting them of the fence, and enlist them in the team that will advocate for equality for all EU citizens including those who currently endure one form of discriminations or the other e.g Romanians, Polish and currently Bulgarians to mention a few. These project will add value to the efforts at promoting equal opportunities and mutual coexistence which will give the needed platform to enable other participants in the project to synergise across Europe and build networks and collaborations amongst youth platforms and to exchange ideas , innovations on how to deepen European citizenship and integration • To raise awareness on European citizenship, To build future partnerships in order to develop partnership projects and,• To understand the challenges of human rights issues in their everyday life,to reflect on participants' own cultural identity, to experience intercultural learning and getting connected through identifying similarities and differences with other young Europeans with different cultural backgrounds, to develop self-confidence, creative and critical thinking and overcome their fear of expressing feelings and opinions, to adopt attitudes of mutual understanding, tolerance and solidarity towards cultural differences in order to build social cohesion within the EU - to discuss and reflect on European culture and point out the importance of participation in the European political processes in 2014
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