Why not exchange prejudices for experiences

STUDY SESSION

WHY NOT EXCHANGE PREJUDICES FOR EXPERIENCES

21st-27th of November 2011, European Youth Centre Budapest, Hungary

Aim:

The Study Session aims to empower youth leaders to work with young people helping them overcome their stereotypes and learn to live in diverse and multicultural societies, to respect human rights, by using creative tools including those of Loesje.

Objectives:

Ø  To become aware and understand the concepts of human rights, diversity, prejudices and stereotypes

Ø  To explore how the prejudices and stereotypes manifest in the countries of participants.

Ø  To share the experiences of the participants in using creative tools for activism in their communities

Ø  To allow participants to reflect upon their position regarding human rights, diversity, prejudices and stereotypes

Ø  To develop the necessary competencies in order to implement the follow up initiatives in their communities and on international level.  

 

Course facilitators:

Carola Ståhl, Loesje International

Agnieszka Byrczek, Cazalla Intercultural

Hussein ElShafei, project manager of the Alexandria Cancer Research Cluster in Egypt & founder Loesje Egypt

Hristijan Jordanoski, Loesje Macedonia

Course Director: Hranush Shahnazaryan, head of Loesje Armenia

Educational advisor: Menno Ettema

 

Participants:

After a hard selection process, 25 participants from more than 20 countries have been chosen from 270 applicants. During the discussion team mention many aspects of the profile, but the main goal was to have as diverse group as possible.

 

The final profile of participants was agreed as follow:

 

-          Participants must have support from an organization

-          Must be very motivated and have clear follow up idea (realistic)

-          There should be balance between people with more activist background and organizational background

-          There should be balance between participants experienced and active in the Loesje network and those who are not

-          Basic experience in the field is recommended

-          Concrete experience working on specific topics (for example – LGBT, work with the disabled, work with Roma community) will be a plus

-          There should be geographical and gender balance

Follow up:

Based on the Study Session “Why not exchange prejudices for experiences”, November 2011, we aim to kick start an innovative long term activity, collecting 500 stories by young people about how they overcame their stereotypes. We believe that personal experiences can make people open their eyes and open up for diversity. The main idea with this long term activity is to make a frame work, where 500 people will make those unique experiences in a number of projects and activities, and share them so that yet more people can be affected. At the Study Session the young participants will be trained with non-formal educational tools from the Compass and Loesje, to share and overcome their stereotypes. As follow ups they will carry out local, national and international projects, which all have one common end result: to collect the stories of stereotypes being broken. With this project we want to build a web portal where the stories will be collected, and inform and support youth organizations and young people to take part.