The international seminar “Feel, Share, Act: Youth Empowerment through Intercultural Learning” was implemented from the 14th to the 21st of January 2017, in the framework of the programme ALF/CFP/2015/EDU-ART co-funded by the Anna Lindh Foundation.
19 participants from Greece, France, Tunisia and Egypt under the guidance of 2 trainers in Non-Formal Education, shared ideas, exchanged good practices and know-how and, finally, developed skills in creating non-formal learning tools and methods that they can use to promote intercultural learning and dialogue in their local communities.
A theme has been stimulated from the title of the training. The days have been divided according to the title as shown on the training program. This thematic structure helped to create a connected flow from start to end; building up the elevation of the training to make the participants reach the designated goal of creating their own activities, as well as test them, in order to implement them in their own countries.
The first day was under the section of “FEEL”. The aim has been to give the participants a taste of cultural difference where they have experience through activities designed different concepts related to culture. In that manner, a dialogue has been created to enrich such an experience they are feeling. The activities that focused on this element were ‘Chess on Foot’, ‘City of Cards’ and ‘Common Grounds’. All of them gave different experiences that widened the horizons in front of the participants. This part of the programme contained contributions from the trainers to the participants.
What followed was the element of “SHARE” where the participants and the trainers worked together on allocating the cultural factors, the misconceptions, the conflict arising and mind trigging values that cultural learning foreshadows. Activities such as ‘Journey to Utopia’ and ‘New Community’ focused on that. Accordingly, the activities: ‘What is Cultural Learning?’ and ‘What is An Activity?’ came after to give the participants a coherent concept and understanding.
Finally, we ended with the 3rd phase of the seminar, “ACT” where the participants started putting what they experienced into action. It is the creating, designing and implementing phase. All the participants worked in groups to develop 4 different activities and test them. The process has been successful and on the spot feedback was given directly to the participants. Consequently, time was provided for the participants to polish and edit the activities for the final draft that will be shared on the platform. At this point, discussions of the follow up plans were made in order to clarify what were the next steps and how things would go in the local communities.
Evaluation and closing came along and they were positive and rewarding.
You can watch a nice video with moments from the seminar, created by the participants, by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWNRR7tGdFY
You can find pictures from the seminar here: https://www.facebook.com/pg/kane.kalamata/photos/?tab=album&album_id=798759406958541
—————————————-
This project is implemented in the framework of the programme ALF/CFP/2015/EDU-ART and co-financed with the support of the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for dialogue between cultures.
