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Youth Empowerment Meets Conflict Transformation
Youth Empowerment Meets Conflict Transformation
Start date: Jan 1, 2015,
End date: Aug 31, 2015
PROJECT
FINISHED
The project ?Youth Empowerment Meets Conflict Transformation? took place in Misaktsieli, Georgia, from 18.04.2014 to 26.04.2014 with a total of 33 participants being youth workers, youth leaders and youth activists from Croatia, France, United Kingdom, Turkey, Romania, Hungary, Italy, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.
Against the background of a great variety of societal conflicts in Europe, the project proposed peace education as an approach fostering youth participation for nonviolent conflict transformation. Therefore, youth workers and youth leaders as well as youth activists were identified as the target group of the project, because they would act as multipliers for the approach of peace education once they have participated in the training course.
Accordingly the objectives of the project were the following:
- To study approaches to conflict transformation within the frame of peace education
- To share methods and experiences for youth empowerment in conflict settings
- To highlight the importance of youth participation in conflict transformation
- To work on future plans for European cooperation on youth project in processes of conflict transformation
In order to reach these objectives, the core activity of the project was a training course that was methodologically based on non-formal education. Thus, the educational programme followed key principles of non-formal education: learner-centred, needs-based, participatory and inclusive, voluntary participation, planned and evaluated.
The educational programme included a wide variety of different methods such as workshops, exercises, simulations, theatre-art methods as well as structured input sessions. These educational elements were accompanied by team building exercises and evaluation methods (see evaluation section of this report).
The specific exercises used during the training course were predominantly those the team of trainers developed themselves or adaptations of existing educational methods designed for courses on peace-building in the youth field.
As a result of the course, the participants increased their competences in conflict transformation, especially in the frame of peace education for young people aiming at youth empowerment and youth participation in the field of peace-building. Additionally, the participants developed five follow-up projects addressing Roma integration in Romania, confidence building in the South Caucasus, youth empowerment and critical thinking in Ukraine, intercultural learning in Turkey, and youth-led peace-building and social change in Europe.