NEWS

Priorities & topics:

• HORIZONTAL: Social inclusion

• YOUTH: Promoting quality, innovation and recognition of youth work

Project activities:

• Research and identification of European good practices in contrasting radicalization and prejudice among young people through Storytelling, Sport and Art.

• Selection of a cluster of 10 young people per partner country (5 of local and 5 of migrant origins) to take part in the process of educational empowerment delivered in the project.

• Implementation of 3 Blended Youth Mobilities (1 per partner country) wherein partners will develop the knowledge, skills and competences of selected youngsters in employing unconventional instruments of Non Formal Education (Storytelling, Sport and Art) as tools for contrasting phenomena of racism and xenophobia among their fellow young people, as well as spreading positive values of inclusion and tolerance. - Implementing a set of local activities delivered by participating youngsters in each partner country towards an audience of their own peers (locals and migrants). The focus of the activities will be to convey the educational message of the project to youngsters in local realities.

• Developing educational resources (Research Reports, Manual and Blog) in multiple languages allowing a wide accessibility and disclosure of project results and thereby producing a direct impact on the audience of youngsters and youth operators in partner countries and in Europe at large.

Expected results:

• 1) Reports - Achieving a comprehensive understanding of the landscape of existing good practices at the European level in the field of contrasting prejudices and racism among young people through Storytelling, Sport and Art methods. By achieving this result, partner organization will lay the grounds for the development of the educational format to be implemented in project youth mobilites as well as produce informational resources (Reports) for supporting the activities of external organizations and operators in the field, both in partner countries and at the European level. The Reports will be produced by means of a coordinated research on the existing landscape of good practices and the sharing of the existing experiences and tools of partner organizations. A total of 4 Reports will be produced: a sectorial Report per each category of non formal learning explored (Storytelling, Sport and Art) and a Final Research Report summarizing the results of Research.

• 2) Educational format - Developing a specific educational programme partitioned in different thematic stages (respectively Storytelling, Sport and Art education) for the comprehensive development of the knowledge, skills and competences forming part of the profile of a youth volunteer working to contrast prejudice, racism and xenophobia among the youth, at the same time promoting the values of tolerance and respect for diversity forming part of a concrete European citizenship. The educational format will be developed building on the results of project research and of the exchange of experience and good practices among partners. In the context of 3 Blended Youth Mobilities, partner organizations will

employ the format for training 10 young people per partner country (5 local and 5 migrant youngsters) as volunteers.

• 3) Local Activities - testing the learning outcomes achieved in the project and spreading project impact at the local level in each partner country. The local activities will focus on spreading the values of rejection of prejudice and xenophobia against migrants and refugees and spreading positive values of European citizenship among local and migrant youngsters. The activities will be implemented by participants involved in project Blended Youth Mobilities, with the support of the sending organization. Each cycle of local activities will involve 30 youngsters (locals and migrants) in each partner country. The results achieved in the activities will be integrated in project Manual and Blog.

• 4) Learning Outputs (Manual, Blog, Web Platform) - spreading awareness, access and usability of project results among the audience of youth operators, youth organizations, NGOs and stakeholders in partner countries and in Europe. For achieving the mentioned results, 3 tangible learning outputs will be produced, as follows:

• Manual "Inclusion of Diversity though Bottom- Up Volunteering". The Manual will contain a detailed outline of the activities implemented during the project at the European and local levels as well as the methodology of Non Formal Education employed as references for external youth operators and organizations interested in having a model for their own activities in the field. The Manual will be released in multiple languages (each partner's plus English) and made available as an OER on partenrs' Website and project Web Platform, with a view to maximaxing its visibility, usability and diffusion.

• Blog "Incl-Hub". The Blog will be developed by participants in the first Blended Youth Mobility in Romania and serve as an open-access, real time diary of the learning process throughout the duration of the latter (from the Blended Youth Mobilities to the local activities). The Blog will include a chat system allowing interested youngsters and external users to engage in direct communication with participants and will be kept operational and animated by participants themselves after the project (for instance, sharing information and ideas regarding their own follow-up to the learning outcomes achieved in the project). Shortcuts to the Blog will be integrated on project Web Platform and partners' Websites.

• Web Platform "Contrasting Intolerance Via Youth Volunteering": The Web Platform will store information, pictures, videos about the project and will integrate digitalized versions of project outputs (Reports and Manual) as well as shortcuts ro the Blog.

• 4) Multiplier Conferences - spreading awareness about the project and its attainments within the audience of youngsters (locals and migrants), youth operators, NGOs and stakeholders (educational institutions, migrant shelters and associations, public authorities and Municipalities) in partner countries.

• 3 Conferences will be implemented in the final stages of the project (1 per partner country).

Participants:

Participants in the project will be the representatives of partner organizations taking part in project Transnational Meetings and the young people involved in the Blended Learning Mobilities and in the upcoming local activities. Participants in the meetings will be project leaders from each partner organization (2 project leaders per partner per meeting), who will take part in a total 3 Transnational Meeting. The same participants, save cases of substitution for qualified reasons, will take part in all the meetings, as a means to providing continuity to the coordination/planning effort. Participants' age will be 25+. The selection of participants will take place through direct appointment by the sending organizations in compliance with their own internal decision-making procedures.

The youngsters participating in the Blended Youth Mobilities will be young people aged 18-25 from each partner country (5 of local and 5 of migrant origins), in playing an active role in contrasting stereotyping and discrimination against migrants and refugees among their fellow youngsters. A total of 30 participants will be involved in the whole partnership (10 participants per partner organization). Selection of this target of participants will take place at the level of each partner country (local/regional level) through a selection procedure coordinated by the sending organizations. The role of the applicant and coordinator in this phase will be to proceed to selection in Romania and monitoring compliance with te requirements of a fair, non discriminatory and transparent selection procedure.



Project complementarity as compared with the present thematic educational offer in the youth sector are highlighted by the following elements:

• The specific educational approach involved, integrating different instruments of Non Formal Education (Storytelling, Sport and Art) in a coherent and purposeful methodology grounded on the specific areas of expertise forming part of the background of the partner organizations.

• The connection established by the project between the two crucial priorities of the European Youth Strategy related respectively to the contrast to radicalization and prejudice among the youth and the promotion of volunteering as an avenue for the development of skills for young people.

• The synergy established between Non Formal Education and the dynamics of peer education, grounded on the added value provided by the similarity of background and experiences connecting the providers (youth volunteers) and the consumers of knowledge (young people). Green (2011) defines Peer Education as an approach whereby “community members are supported to promote health-enhancing change among their community. Peer education is the teaching or sharing of health information, values and behavior in educating others who may share similar social backgrounds or life experiences”. Peer educators, as highlighted by Sloane and Zimmer (1993) build their effectiveness on young people’s propensity to give greater credibility to their peers as carriers of messages and positive behaviors.

• The connection with the European and the local sphere, ensured by the integration of a specific phase of local activities with young people in project design.

• The geographical scope of the partnership, including countries dealing with significant challenges of minorities' inclusion (Romania), migrant/refugee integration (Italy) as well as Bulgaria, a country representing a key transit point of migrant/refugee flows directed to Europe, due to its strategic positioning astride the main routes of communication between Turkey and Europe.

• The direct inclusion of youth migrant targets as active parts in the educational process, thereby fostering their ownership of the process of inclusion. WSTH will achieve the far-reaching objective of promoting rejection of stereotypes, racism and xenophobia among the youth as well as fostering their active involvement in promoting tolerance, inclusion and the positive values of European citizenship through finding, collecting, combining and improving existing good practices in the field of youth work as well as successful and tested methods forming part of the background of each partner organization processing the latter into reference resources for operators (Reports) and programmes of educational development targeted at potential youth volunteers. The implementation of a phase of local activities will allow a testing of the results achieved in the project as well as the production of a concrete impact on the targeted realities. Through producing and releasing educational and informational materials and architectures (Research Reports, Blog, Manual) of direct interests and usability for youngsters and youth operators in partner countries and Europe, WSTH will at the same time extend the geographical outreach of results alongside their impact and sustainability.

We Shan’t TolerHate project is co-funded by Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.