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ROMA CULTURAL DISCOVERY THROUGH EUROPE
ROMA CULTURAL DISCOVERY THROUGH EUROPE
Start date: Jun 20, 2014,
End date: Dec 30, 2014
PROJECT
FINISHED
According to the Council of Europe, 10 to 12 million Roma people are living in Europe, distinguished in diverse communities and living in European societies for over 600 years. Despite this long history together, Roma people are still suffering from a lot of prejudices and discrimination.
We believe that a lack of knowledge on the Roma people, their way of living and their culture is the first problem that brings people prejudices and rejection. That is why we think that opening people to cultures they don’t know is going to help fighting ignorance, to thwart the unfounded fears and enable closer links between communities.
The purpose of this project is to establish a dialog space, work on cultural diversity and fight against stereotypes, especially toward Roma communities in Europe. We will work on the knowledge of the different cultures’ participants to enable them to communicate, understand each other and overcome their respective prejudices.
We believe that establishing a mutual cultural comprehension is the groundwork for a better communication and integration between the communities.
The objectives of the project are:
• To make the participants think about prejudices and realize every cultures have prejudices on the others
• To open the mind of the participants about other Roma and non Roma cultures and develop communication between communities
• To explore how youth exchange can benefit cultural mutual understanding and develop new ideas
• To develop an understanding of the relationships between concepts of citizenship, culture, Europe, history, tolerance, and communication
• To use creativity and visual expression as a cultural communication link
• To develop a common understanding between the participants organizations and instruments, on the subject of the Roma communities in Europe to continue working together during following projects.
• To develop visual supports that can be used to extend the impacts of the exchange at a local and regional level and promote it
Methodology:
The program of the exchange will be based on workshops and activities, intercultural dialogue, communication and will be conducted using an interactive and participative approach. It will stimulate creativity, active participation, sense of initiative and involvement of the young people on all the cultural discovery aspects during the project, such as food, languages, music, dances, arts, history, and oral traditions of each country and communities. Active group/team work, role-plays, outdoor activities and plenary discussions will characterize the program of the youth exchange in order to cover all aspects of the project themes.
The youth are going to work on visual supports during the exchange. They will have short trainings on photography and video to realize a movie and a photographic exhibition.
Participants:
The training course will bring together participants from local/regional authorities and from non-governmental youth organizations. Twinning applications bringing together two applicants from Roma communities and two applicants from non-Roma communities will be encouraged per each country, in an exchange purpose between each communities. We are calling four participants per country, so a total of 28 participants in this project.
All participants selected for this course must be:
• Motivated in participating and developing further the project as this youth exchange will be the first step.
• Able to communicate and work in English