This collaboration started when a group of young people from Poland, Luxembourg, Turkey, Armenia, Egypt and Portugal met in Portugal in a Partnership Building Activity and worked together on future ideas. They kept the contact and their interest alive and decided to carry out a peacebuilding and peace education project. Project My Identity Matters – MIM is a result of cooperation involving organisations from Luxembourg, Armenia, Sweden, Portugal, Jordan, Denmark, Georgia, Lithuania, and Turkey.
The project consists of 2 activities: Training Course (TC) and a Partnership-Building Activity (PBA) has the following objectives:
The 1st activity- TC:
1 – To develop competencies of the pax in HR promotion and protection, conflict transformation, peacebuilding and intercultural dialogue;
2 – To promote the presence and the role of young people as positive actors of change in peace-building processes;
3 – To strengthen the role of young people and youth NGOs in identifying and speaking up against human rights violations, discrimination, and hate speech;
4 -To support the field presence of the European Commission in order to promote the values behind it;
5 – To develop competencies of youth workers/leaders related to peacebuilding.
For 2nd activity
1 – To bring together youth workers interested in conflict prevention through NFE in order to create new project ideas within the Erasmus+;
2 – To present examples of efficient/successful youth peace-building projects;
3 – To discover the role of the NGOs and young people in the process of peacebuilding and peace education;
4 – To create a space for dialogue among youth and youth workers from Europe and its neighbour Countries for fostering trans-national/trans-regional cooperation in peacebuilding/education;
5 – To promote peace education, peacebuilding and non-violent conflict resolution among youth in the country and in the region;
6 – To highlight the role of Erasmus + in the process of peacebuilding and inter-cultural learning;
7- To explore European values such as human rights, active citizenship, participation and good practices as a common base for future cooperation within Erasmus+.
The objectives were linked with the Erasmus+ in: Project fosters mutual understanding between youth in different countries within EECA, Meda and EU and the training course is directly linked with: The promotion of European values in accordance with Article 2 of the Treaty on the European Union (The union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for HR. Their values are common to the Member States in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail.
The project initially had three phases:
The first residential meeting – training course was implemented in Luxemburg city, Luxembourg, from the 14 to the 23 December 2021. The first residential meeting aimed to support the implementation and development of youth work in the Programme and Partner countries through quality non-formal education activities using a human rights-based approach in peace education and quality standards of the educational projects.
The “Homework” part of the project was implemented in the countries of the partners involved in the project. It was a period when participants implemented local activities connected with the project topic. The projects were planned with the help of trainers.
The second residential meeting PBA was implemented in Yerevan, Armenia, from the 4 to the 11 of August 2022. The aim of this meeting was to contribute to the improvement of the quality of future projects on peacebuilding and education for peace, organised by PBA participants.
Both meetings were planned to be held in 2020, but it was postponed several times because of pandemics. The project gathered 58 participants in general (33 TC and 29 PBA).
Although due to the excellent cooperation of partner organisations and motivated participants, all parts were successfully implemented. The project gathered partners from 9 Program and Partner countries: Luxembourg, Armenia, Sweden, Portugal, Jordan, Denmark, Georgia, Lithuania, and Turkey. Results were disseminated via social media pages of partners and participants, local media, mailing lists, partners’ networks,s etc. As a continuation, new projects based on human rights, diversity and identity promotion and inclusion were planned. “My Identity, Our Reality” was developed by ALA in cooperation with partners involved in this project and was applied under Erasmus + Programme to the Luxembourgish NA Anefore. It is a long-term KA1 project aiming to support the implementation and development of youth work in the Programme and Partner countries (EECA and Meda) through non-formal education to develop educational tools to improve the sense of identity and level of well-being in youth work.
For the project MIM, the process of selecting participants was the partner organisation’s responsibility.
Participants were mainly youth leaders and youth workers working and residing in the involved partner organisations and were:
– Involved in non-formal educational projects with young people and the possibility of multiplication of the effect of the training course;
– Active in working with young people with special needs on the promotion of human rights;
– Interested in developing their competencies as a promoter of peace education;
– Motivated and in a position to follow up the training course with initiatives and educational activities;
– Committed to attending the full duration of the project
– Are able to work in English.
