Month: September 2016
Human Right Education for Rural Youth – Albania 2016
Irini Makridou, Nicolae Savga, Julinda Muça, David Hackl, Xhendris Ismaili
Photo: Nicolae, Irini, David, Julinda, Xhendris.
The second part of the “Human Right Education For Rural Youth ” project took place in Pogradec, Albania from 03.09.2016 – 11.09.2016. During the international seminar, 30 people from 10 different countries were given the chance to experience some awesome time while learning how to create their own campaigns that will help to improve their communities back home. Each group came up with the original ideas that they will implement in their countries within October and November 2016.
Let’s have a look on their topics:
Albania: Youth centre in Vora
Bosnia: People of all the nations learning under the same roof.
Czech Republic: Religious differences
Greece: Helping refugees to integrate with the local community
Macedonia: Integration of young people in Macedonia
Montenegro: Employment among youth
Poland: Mobility of young people in the rural areas
Serbia: Breaking stereotype and prejudices faced by members of the LGBT community
Romania: Efficient garbage disposal in the local community
Turkey: Human rights education
Be the change that you want to see in the world
Imer Mehanovic, Irina Stamatovic
Photo: Imer and Irina
We are in Pogradec, city in Albania, on the seminar about human rights education for rural youth. These kinds of projects are a meeting of cultures, active youth leaders from different countries and backgrounds. Intercultural atmosphere is challenging and inspiring us to work together while having in mind that similar motives brought us all here. We are committed to reach the goals of better tomorrow for our communities and making the world a better place for the next generations.
Imagine yourself in a place where you can be free, where you can tell what is in your mind without being judged, where you can find inspiration and motivation for active participation in the local communities.
Last but not least, imagine yourself hanging out with people sharing your vision of the better world and passion for doing that by themselves.
But there is no need to imagine, because it is all reality and possible with the Erasmus+.
Be the change that you want to see in the world.
Day 4 of the EU Project: “Human rights Education for Rural Youth”
Nil Duban, Clara Tirca, Mariana Lulache
After active exercises, ten action research presentations, energizers and intercultural experiences, nine brave participants wanted to experience creative writing workshop.
Nothing too strange so far! They met in the dining room and tried to let their imagination to be gone with the waves of the beautiful Ohrid Lake. The weather was gray and windy, a perfect context to dream “Sunny Words”.
First exercise:
To write a group story beginning with “I open the window” … After each participant introduced their part, the result was funny:
The window was opened to shout the Pizza Man, because our character was hungry, even he couldn’t decide easily. The window is closed and, opened again…too late! Our Pizza Man ran away with Billy. Who is Billly? Some boyfriend expected to bring food…
Then the creative writing team had to choose a participant and to describe him using not too obvious details (tasty Teddy Bear appeared in the scene, too shy personage, a funny smelling chocolate girl…)
The final exercises “forced “us to use our senses (to describe the snow) and to bring up stereotypes or prejudices while writing a dialogue between a man and a woman who were fighting.
We found the creative text writing exercise as a good method to help youngsters open to each other, to practice English and …to be and feel young…
Hope center in Vora
Teuta Buchi, Ajnur Bafqari, Sasho Naumovski, Ana Kotorcevic, Gentjan Hajari
Vora is a municipality of 30.000 people, more than 50% of whom are young. The municipality is located 20 km from Tirana, the capital of Albania. As other cities, Vora has many social problems.
The young people, who make up the biggest part of the population, are currently asking the municipality for the youth centers. Just like other youth, they spent most of their time in coffee bars, while at the same time more than 60% of them are unemployed. There is no possibility for social education and most of the young people end up gambling and spending time in the betting shops, even though this is not what they would like to do. The lack of alternatives to free time activities is clear!
Photo: Youth activities in Vora.
Some of the young people who are activists took the initiative to talk about their problems. Most of them thought that the lack of public spaces is the main issue affecting youth. As a solution, they came up with the idea of establishing the youth center. This space will offer educational, social as well as cultural activities and will raise the cooperation of the youth.
The motivation to open up the common space for youth is very high and already 80% of the the young people questioned expressed their interest in volunteering in the place.
A group of young people advocating for the youth centre and leading the initiative are soon going to knock at the doors of the municipality so as to take the issue further. Now they are discussing the topic at the Human Rights for Rural Youth seminar in Pogradec and together with other participants from across Europe they are looking for the best ways of convincing the municipality of Vora to support their project.
The meeting with the representatives of the municipality is schedule for 28th of September and young people count on the local government to support their idea. We wish them good luck and keep our fingers crossed for the success of creating the hope center for young people in Vora.
We have different religions but the same anatomy
Mirnes Berbic, Petar Djordjevic, Stefan Todorovic, Bratislav Radoman
Photo: Mirnes, Petar, Stefan and Bratislav.
It all started in Pogradec, Albania where youth workers came together to fight for human rights. During seven days seminar they had an opportunity to gain new knowledge that they can apply in their further life and career. Also, let’s not forget the term ”INTERNATIONAL”. International in a sense of gathering ten European countries which struggle in areas such as minority, education, environment, equality or any issues connected to the work of youngsters trying to make a difference.
We are all different, but still the same. We have different religions, but same anatomy. We are from different countries, but we have same habits. We are from different places, but we share love for life and freedom. And we all gather together for the same reason and that is getting new knowledge, sharing experiences, exploring new learning methods and most of all to UNITE. Therefore, during the seminar we spoke about similar issues, problems and struggles in everyday life, about living together in diverse communities whose members represent different ethnic groups, speak various languages, etc.
Photo: Let’s get energized!
The goal of the seminar was to try and find the possible solutions to various issues. Next, we tried to tackle these through so called Action Research and campaigning back in our home countries. During this seminar we did not face any problems connected with fact that we had different opinions, speak different languages or have different habits. Moreover, all the participants were encouraged to feel free to give their piece of mind and share information on the ways how human rights are violated or protected in their home countries.
The project was financially supported by the ERASMUS+ Programme of the European Commission as part of the Capacity Building project entitled: Human Rights Education for Rural Youth.
Working on New Project Ideas: Erasmus +
The last part of the seminar was devoted to Erasmus + Programme. Firstly, the participants had an opportunity to deeper their knowledge of Erasmus +. After, the participants brainstormed ideas for future projects and based on their interests they created several project teams. In the last step, the participants presented their new project ideas and gave feedback to each other.
Exploring Local Realities of Pogradec
Photos: Visit of Local Municipality in Pogradec
During the seminar the participants had also an opportunity to meet up with the representatives of the local municipality in Pogradec and discuss with them youth related issues and challenges that young people living in this municipality are facing.
Working on Campaign Ideas
One of the main aims of the seminar is to create plans for campaigns that will be implemented after the seminar in participants’ countries. During the project days the country teams came up with following campaign ideas: raising awareness on ecological issues in Romania, supporting integration of Albanian and Macedonian youth in Macedonia, supporting international mobility of young people of rural areas in Poland, raising awareness on human rights in Turkey, creating youth centre in Vora city in Albania, fighting youth unemployment through entrepreneurship in Montenegro, fighting segregation in education in Bosnia and Herzegovina, opening up the question of religious discrimination in the Czech Republic, fighting stereotypes and prejudices that face refugees in Greece or LGBT in Serbia.
Photo: Greek team is presenting their campaign ideas including idea to organize living library giving an opportunity refugees to share their stories.
Presentation of Results of Action Research Phase
Photo: Presentation of Czech Team: Discrimination of religious groups in the Czech Republic
At the start of seminar the participants shared results of their action researches. Each national team had an opportunity to share their findings and discuss it with others.
Photo: Presentation of Turkish team
Human Rights Education For Rural Youth 