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PBA "Next Step - Strategy for Inclusion"
Start date: Jan 19, 2015, End date: Sep 18, 2015 PROJECT  FINISHED 

The Partnership Building Activity "Next Step - Strategy for Inclusion" gathered 24 active project coordinators & youth workers from 20 NGO?s or associations involved in youth work (inclusive youth work) from Program and Partner Countries (Austria, Latvia, Romania, Bulgaria, Italy, Macedonia, Estonia, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, Russian Federation, Moldova, Belarus, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Jordan and Ukraine) in Deutschlandsberg, Austria, from 3rd - 8th May 2015. Totally involved people - 31 (including support stuff). The project aims to give space and time to reinforce the partnership in the framework of EU Erasmus+ Youth in order to create qualitative projects and cooperation?s based on ?Accessible/Inclusive projects for All? approach (especially long term projects). Inclusion nowadays is one of the priorities of European Union. Also Erasmus+ Youth points out inclusion of young people with fewer opportunities as a priority for this Program. Young people with fewer opportunities lack access not only to education, labor market, travelling & so on, but also to free time activities, contact with their peers &so on? These groups mostly have different activities separately from each other (for example, disabled young people and non - disabled young people). When there is no possibility created for different groups of society to come together, to work together, to learn together and to spend time together there is space created for prejudices, discrimination, xenophobia, homophobia? Also many conflicts and misunderstandings are founded on reciprocal ignorance. Because people are badly informed or educated on inclusion topics, people are often victims of media?s interpretations of information, etc. Many activities are not accessible for all groups (including environment, financial aspects). To be able to combat ignorance, fight against discrimination and exclusion, xenophobia, it is important not only to gain knowledge about those groups, because more you know about ?others? the more you are inclined to care and take in account the their needs, but also create space for organizations to come together, create networks and joined projects. We believe that direction towards more inclusive society can be achieved more through networking as to be alone. Inclusion is very complex issue and we have come to conclusion that ?joint work? sometimes brings more effective results, than if we would work alone. Inclusion activities doesn?t stop with one project, it should be ongoing process. Erasmus+ has been opening new possibilities for organizations to work on projects in a longer run, combining different activities under one project. Nowadays the modern technologies & social networks are giving possibilities to establish partnerships online without any problems, but never less, we believe that the quality of the activities can be higher, if you have met the person before, have discussed topics face to face. Also common understanding of the topic is important asset of future projects done by partners & finding common definition and understanding is more effective in a face to face activities than rather sending out email to escape misunderstanding afterwards (for example, YIPOE was invited to become partner in project in Malta, where the main topic was disability, but project wasn't able to host a person with disability). The same counts for other partners who are involved in this activity. During this seminar participants had not only the possibility to get to know each other and create future cooperation frames (with focus on long term partnerships tackling inclusive projects), but also had possibility to get familiar with the terminology of inclusive youth project, analyze the meaning of the term ?youngster with fewer opportunities?, share their tools and best practices and find common understanding of ?Accessible/inclusive project? that it can be adopted in fallow up projects. They discovered how to use Erasmus+ as a tool for Inclusion of youngster. The project used non formal education methods and was based on active participation balancing theoretical input with practical ones (learning by doing, simulations, sharing their experiences, presenting organizations, engaging in discussion, a lot of time was used to set up and do first planning for the future projects, etc.). Activities were facilitated by 2 facilitators who are experts in field of inclusion, non-formal education and Erasmus +. Short and long term outcomes: created contacts & partnerships, new project applications for next Erasmus+ deadlines, which will include inclusive approach, created Facebook group of the project, which is still active & greater understanding of concept of inclusive projects. The seminar met necessary accessibility standards and was available also for people with disabilities (in total in organizer team & participants group there were 6 disabled youth leaders & youth workers involved).
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19 Partners Participants