Agora Workshop 1

EDUCATION, INTERCULTURAL LEARNING AND YOUTH

The Workshop gathered approximately 280 people within two days from different cultural background, ages, genders, representing different components of civil society.

The sessions were the space to experience intercultural dialogue and in particular inter-generational, dialogue between formal and non-formal education, which were the challenges and at the same time opportunities for learning and indeed gave to the workshop an added value and richness.

Our first challenge was the understanding of the geographical scope we are working in. EuroMediterranean is not only the countries of the Union for the Mediterranean, but it is a broader EuroMed, taking into consideration all the countries influencing the European Union and South and East Mediterranean countries.

Many times it was said: “Education is a KEY, youth is a KEY and civil society is the main supporter”. It proves us that education not only has been, but will be the priority field of the Anna Lindh Foundation and that Youth will be and should be one of the priority target groups.

However,

“Education cannot achieve the change alone; it should be supported by various policies: cultural, youth, educational… ”.

“Education should be strategic, transversal and integral. The outcomes of the projects and actions should be shared, evaluated and visualized”.

We need a coherent and coordinated strategy on youth within the euro-med partnership in order to face challenges of employment, gender inequality, sustainable development, migration and other.

ALF should continue its EuroMed sectorial coordination efforts to guarantee synergy, complimentarity, avoiding duplication and working together for the same purpose. This coordination should be formalized with European Commission.

The South countries should be encouraged to have independent youth councils which will serve as interlocuters and managers of local programs and influence and lobby for youth interest in Meda countries.

The countries of the South are encouraged to contribute financially to EuroMed Youth and Educational programs in order to avoid Eurocentrism.

Youth should be recognized as one of the most important group and partner for change. “Youth is a part of reality today and if you think of it as future, you undermine the impact it can have now”.

The open debate of the Workshop on Education, Youth and Intercultural learning, identified the following guidelines to take into account when developing educational programs:

• Education should be close to community needs and targeting the community directly, not only focusing on civil society professionals

• Involving specific groups, such as migrants, minorities, less privileged youth, recognizing specific approaches and needs; especially new migrants as bridge between cultures

• We would like to underline the importance of work with the families and parents.

• Developing values and attitudes, such as critical thinking, empathy and curiosity

• Using creative and innovative tools and approaches

• Linking education with Arts and Media

• Creating multipliers, people who are motivated to pass further their competences and share their experience

• Using Social Media tools (e-education, e-recourse centers, e-campaigns, short films, blogging etc.)

• Promoting Life Long Learning, working on the perception that learning should and can continue through all the life and in all ages

• Linking formal and non formal education

• Formal education has leading position towards non formal, but it does not always prove its efficiency, especially when developing competences in diversity and intercultural dialogue. We should reconsider the importance of the non-formal education, promote and recognize it.

-We would like to stress the importance to long-term sustainable and flexible projects, open to change and improvements.

- ALF should keep on working on Capacity building

• Training of teachers, trainers and youth workers, developing not only their knowledge, but as well skills and values (holistic approach to education)

• Empowerment of teachers

• Creation of the network of teachers working on intercultural dialogue in order to exchange best practices.

-Mobility – “Nothing compears face-to-face contacts; personal experience in encounters is extremely important”.

• To find ways to facilitate youth mobility between South and North and between South and South

• Make efforts to influence the simplification of the visa procedures for youth to participate in youth programs

• To enhance the visa mechanism engaging embassies and embassy stsff in intercultural dialogue activities

• Visibility of the youth programs as the way to increase mobility

• Creation of Euro-Arab Found for mobility of youth for educational purposes

-Support creation of physical places of encounter, such as youth centers for youth to develop their knowledge, skills and attitudes and provide spaces for intercultural dialogue

- In terms of usage and development of tools, we recommend that tools:

• Should be accessible, translated to many languages

• Creation of database of existing tools and provide mechanism for exchange and feedback

• Internet supporting visibility and dissemination: best practices must be shared and serve as empowerment

• Revise existing tools and assess them regarding sustainability and effectiveness

• Social Media (such as blogging) is the new way of participation, which does not have borders and does not require visas.

I would like to thank all the Task Force people, the chairs of the sessions, the speakers and participants and especially the team of reporters.

]]> http://www.trajectorya.ee/?feed=rss2&p=488 http://www.trajectorya.ee/?p=470 http://www.trajectorya.ee/?p=470#comments Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:58:21 +0000 Trajectorya http://www.trajectorya.ee/?p=470 Reporting live from the Anna Lindh Forum, 4th -7th March 2010 Barcelona

Social Media has seen an exponential development in the very recent times. The massive use of Information Society Technologies continues to accelerate but seems that the words supporting Intercultural Dialogue are being overwhelmingly shadowed by the negative messages and hate speech.

In the Euro-Mediterranean area there is a confluence of paternalism, authoritarianism and dogmatism that gets its reflection in all parts of society.

Despite last decades have seen a huge improvement on the development of education, change in a number of not support the development of real participatory “Citizenship”

The great development of the education in all the area has not been matched  by the develop competences of emancipation, autonomy, empathy, critical thinking, tolerance of ambiguity…

Could the social media be used to develop these competences and to open and extend the reflection to the citizenry??

Here comes the Podcast!

Podcast Getting Glocal Interviews

 This text is of Keri Smith. Keri Smith is an author/illustrator turned guerilla artist. I found it on a blog on the internet and wanted to share it. I’m inspired by her way of seeing the world differently. I mostly like her ‘Guerilla art kit-book’, where she gives tips to act as a guerilla artist to change the world. I mentioned this writing of her, because I think a lot of situations happening in this world have to do with the sense of FEAR. People are afraid of what they don’t know. The easiest option is of course go for the easiest way, but we should also sometimes go for the unknown, even if fear is present.

I’m reading the book ‘Letters to a young poet’ from Rainer Maria Rilke. He is considered one of the German language’s greatest 20th-century poets. In his seventh letter he writes the following: “We must embrace struggle. Every living thing conforms to it. Everything in nature grows and struggles in its own way, establishing its own identity, insisting on it at all cost, against all resistance.” We should not be afraid to explore the world with our own senses. Our own senses that sees the mass-media (through which we are influenced daily) in a critical way. To not follow every time what the neighbors do, but to think and feel ourselves. To go our own road. It will be a hard way, but that’s the beginning for now.

Last week, Swiss people voted for banned of minarets in Switzerland. According to Swiss laws, if you want to make a law, you should collect at least 1000.000 signatures from people and then all people in the country vote for or against it. So they have done it and result is 57% no for minarets. By the way, minaret is a tall thin tower on a mosque. It is used to call people to pray. But in non-Muslim countries, they don’t do it.

There are about 300.000 Muslim people who live in Switzerland. And there are 150 mosque and 4 of them with minarets. So practically, they do not have minarets in the mosque. Because of municipality does not give permission. But now they have put it to the law. To be honest, there is no obligation to have minarets in Islam. People still can go to mosque and pray. However, what I have seen in this issue is they wanted to limit of freedom of Muslim people in the country. This makes them uncomfortable in their country, Switzerland.

Another sad thing is this law did not come from a racist or extremist party but from people. That is why I am afraid more. We are used to have “Le Pen”s or “Geert Wilders”s in European politics. However, we are not used to meet thousands and thousands of people who is against of Muslim people’s freedom.

I really would like to understand them but I cannot. I think the motto of in democracy is Liberté, égalité, fraternité, (liberty, equality, fraternity) as basic principle of French Revaluation. So I think Switzerland has missed some parts of these 3 big words. First this law is against the religion liberty, and then against equality of Muslim and other people and finally that kind of things increase xenophobia among people. These kinds of laws increase the hostility and hate among people.

How can you explain me that in an area, churches can have bell towers but mosques cannot have minarets? What kind of democracy is it? According to me, It is a clear disobeying of Declaration of Human Rights.

I haven never heart to ban a bell tower of a church in a Muslim country or in any country in the world. So what Swiss people wanted to do? A few days after this vote, I have met with a Swiss activist, and we have talked with this issue. She told me they would protest it and do something with it. Moreover, she told me “I should not generalize it to whole Swiss people. Ok I am not trying to do. But how could this article pass? We know Swiss people as liberal and open. Has is started to change?

One thing can change this law. This is European Court of Human Rights. I hop ECHR do something for a democracy.

My Europe, do something!

Yunus

Hello, how are you feeling? No, I’m not trying to know if you sleep well or had a good day in your work, but how are you feeling regarding the place where you live? Do you feel like Estonian? German? Italian? Maybe European?
I believe that in 50 years it will be harder to understand these questions. If the influence that we keep receiving from the same sources, the same mass communication tools, continue I believe that the local tradition will be modified. I’m not saying that the traditions and culture will end but they will be modified in a way to include a massive number of young people that today just have the city life style as their culture standard, or maybe subculture.
As Levi-Strauss said, “one live is not enough for describing just one hour in a 50 persons human society”. That´s why preservation of one culture depends essentially of their own members; but in a global world, with so huge quantity of information to keep in any levels, and were changes on traditional family systems avoid to transmit the information directly from generation to generation, we risk to our cultural roots were transmitted just in little pills, where the origins of those traditions will disappear, remaining just a residual sample that could increase the stereotypes.
The influence of the medias, that standardize the cultural signs, especially between young people, is another variable that could accelerate the destruction of the cultural identity.
In 50 years due to the fact that traditional agriculture is decreasing as well the number of local farmers, is expected a significant loss on traditional culture in countryside, usually very strong and essential to national culture. On the other hand is expected an increase on city population with cultural references decreasing day by day replaced to a stereotyped culture just made by surrounding marketing culture (related to products that some “specific” culture are supposed to buy).
Music, clothes, literature, dance and all the issues that before were characterized to be part of a culture will be much more standards. Who never saw a “MTV kid” with your rap dance, music, clothe and attitude in your own neighbourhood?
The main struggle in the next years is to bring the real local culture to the street and show them as attractive for young people. Otherwise I will see in the near future, my son and daughter and maybe my grandchildren acting like a ghetto rapper or a movie superstars with their values and attitudes.
Why people want to go to another country as immigrants?
There are four reasons about it. One reason is a conflict problem: political, regional issue. Second is an economic reason: suffering. Third is to get good education. Last one is a personal issue, it means private issues: marriage, adoption and so on. From a country which receives immigrants, basically they need of workforce and some humanitarian reasons.
Some people would say that culture is related with society and politic. It is important to preserve our own culture and succeed it to the next generation. But If we are living in one world, we could have a capacity to share our cultures.
As a conclusion I insist that in 50 years later, we are living in multicultural society with international and intercultural understanding.
Is in our hands to decide how much effort we want to do for the continuity of our local cultures.
Welcome to the beginning of the end of your Culture.

From our trainer colleague and activist Ilze Jece (Green Alternative, Latvia)

Bottled water is healthy water—or so marketers would have us believe. Just look at the labels or the bottled water ads: deep, pristine pools of spring water; majestic alpine peaks; healthy, active people gulping down icy bottled water between biking in the park and a trip to the yoga studio.
In reality, bottled water is just water. That fact isn’t stopping people from buying a lot of it. Bottled water is big business. But in terms of sustainability, bottled water is a dry well. It’s costly, wasteful, and distracts from the brass ring of public health: the construction and maintenance of safe municipal water systems.
While public safety groups correctly point out that many municipal water systems are aging and there remain hundreds of chemical contaminants for which no standards have been established, there’s very little empirical evidence which suggests bottled water is any cleaner or better for you than its tap equivalent.
Bottled water produces up to 1.5 million tons of plastic waste per year. That plastic requires up to 47 million gallons of oil per year to produce. And while the plastic used to bottle beverages is of high quality and in demand by recyclers, over 80 percent of plastic bottles are simply thrown away. That assumes empty bottles actually make it to a garbage can. Plastic waste is now at such a volume that vast eddies of current-bound plastic trash now spin endlessly in the world’s major oceans. This represents a great risk to marine life, killing birds and fish which mistake our garbage for food.
In the documentary film Thirst, authors Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman demonstrated the rapid worldwide privatization of municipal water supplies, and the effect these purchases are having on local economies. Water is being called the “Blue Gold” of the 21st century. Thanks to increasing urbanization and population, shifting climates, and industrial pollution, fresh water is becoming humanity’s most precious resource. Multinational corporations are stepping in to purchase groundwater and distribution rights wherever they can, and the bottled water industry is an important component in their drive to commoditize what many feel is a basic human right: the access to safe and affordable water.
There’s a simple alternative to bottled water: buy a stainless steel thermos, and use it. Don’t like the way your local tap water tastes? Inexpensive carbon filters will turn most tap water sparkling fresh at a fraction of bottled water’s cost.

Usually when we talk about the globalisation, we understand it in a negative way, especially when related to environmental and economical issues. How about globalisation from a social perspective? Here is a vision of the world in 2060 from our group:

POVERTY

Reducing the poverty all over the world is a task for a Superman. Since we’re just ordinary human beings, we would stick to the motto: »Don’t give the fish to the hungry one, but teach him how to catch it.« Funding alone is not enough!

INTERCULTURAL RELATIONSHIP

Because of the globalisation we face different problems, related to different cultural backgrounds and religious views of people living in the same society. Tolerance itself, as important as it can be, is not enough. So it would be nice not just to tolerate the differencies but to understand and respect them. Of course the understanding and respect must be mutual.

HUMAN RIGHTS

As we are human beings, we should be aware of our human rights. Raising awareness on local and global level and putting pressure on actual situations that are unacceptable, would be a good start.

ACTIVE CITIZENSHIP AND DEMOCRACY

We also should realise that beside human rights, we also have some human duties. To create an open-minded society, we should stimulate others to take the responsibility to be active citizens. People are becoming more and more passive and the majority doesn’t care for things happening in the neighbour’s backyard, let alone the situation in a far away country of the third world. If we are able to listen to the other and create diplomatic solutions for occuring problems, we are on the good way to build up a more democratic society.

EQUALITY

Poor or rich, young or old, factory worker or a highly educated scientist – they should all have the same accessibility to health care, education, retirement benefits and other important things.

Yes, that can sound like an unreachable plan, but maybe step by step we can make it become the truth by changing our attitude and awareness of all the mentioned issues. It’s all up to us!

You have something different to come this time in this particular place. Do not judge us too hard – because, yes, we have wings, so take THIS !

One day, walking in a park, I had a vision. It was something not related to today at all. Relating to tomorrow, the day after tomorrow… Another space and time - the time still to come.

I saw this girl - she came to me and said: “I am from the new generation. The new people. I`d like to talk about us, the new generation, the green homo sapiens”.

And the conversation began… Just like that – just about things. And I asked, what about the time you`re living in, how about the time 50 years ahead?

How does the planet look like? Are there any of the Green forests left, and what about the blue seas?

Yes, we have all of these things. It is still green, it still blooms and flourishes.

How come it is possible?

There was a large amount of time necessary for you to become aware of the harm you do. And, just as you understood this, you started taking the right decisions. One by one you started to understand that what you`ve really got is one love, one life and one planet to live it on. You started asking the right questions: “Why do I feel a lack of water, when others keep wasting too much of it?”

Just start with yourself, the rest will happen – just like a snowball, coming down a hill, turning bigger minute by minute. You become the roots for a tree – having the strength to change the branches. Every single one of you, influencing the governments, the presidents and each other.

So what will make the snowball turn?

Teach your children taking the responsibility for their actions, understanding all the possible consequences their actions can have.

And then I woke up, understanding that the old game is over, the new one has begun. None of the old marketing games will further work.

It is up to you – the end of this story…

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love-faith-hope

While world population continues to grow and resources are decreasing the business model still seems to be based on infinitive growth. Globalization is seen as the thrive to ecological problems, but this coin has two sides.

Small local businesses and micro-financing seem like the ideal solution for future economic model. Still there is no escape from the globalization brought about through internet, big multinational companies and open market. At one side of the coin we have the consumer who decides which companies and business practices will flourish and which will diminish. If the consumer prefers social and economic friendly businesses, then we can hope that sustainable business and responsibility towards community will be a (new)norm in the economy.

On the other side of the coin we have the role of IMF, World Bank and WTO who should tame the big corporations and banks. Perhaps the only solution to generate “green business” is to remove the gap between the rich and the poor economies, how otherwise could the developing countries commit to the international agreements of sustainable growth?

So we have a coin where on one side we have an individual, with their everyday decisions made in the supermarket . On the other side governments and international corporations who could regulate the financial sector and help developing countries to grow sustainably. Which one of them will count for more change in 50 years to come?