Change the Challenge – broadening the gender spectrum in the Mediterranean Erasmus Project

Project Title

Change the Challenge – broadening the gender spectrum in the Mediterranean

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Gender equality / equal opportunities; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning

Project Summary

The project is set in the frame of 5 years of work on the topics of gender, intersectionality, EuroMediterranean cooperation and antidiscrimination and is strengthening a network of organisations that have been working directly in the promotion of two youth goals, Equality of All Genders and Inclusive Societies. This partnership’s strength is to face gender issues in a deeply intercultural context by approaching the roots of inequality and challenging traditionally constructed gender roles; this process brought to highlight the complexity of gender related topics and minorities, not settling for the surface but willingly digging into all the nuances of gender, beyond a limited binary view, by underlining the similarities in the EuroMediterranean area.
This project aims to share, confront and systematize good practices and methods to mainstream a gender-sensitive approach in the EuroMediterranean youth field, keeping in mind the complexity of such an intercultural and interreligious context.
The specific objectives are:
– to gather and systematize educational methods and practices and rethink them to be included in a framework of advocacy;
– to foster an innovative, intersectional view of gender throughout the EuroMediterranean youth field;
– to promote intercultural dialogue and promote knowledge about and acceptance of diversity in the EuroMediterranean societies;
– to reinforce the response of education and training systems and youth policies to respect for gender equity;
– to foster a participatory approach in Euromediterranean cooperation, enhancing an equal exchange of contributions and competences, in order to counter a Eurocentric and neo-colonial approach.

The partners have selected staff members that will take part in the project implementation. Regarding experts and Youth Workers they will be selected following the multidisciplinary criteria of the project objective: women empowerment, gender inclusion, youth work practice, advocacy and youth policy at local, national and Euromediterranean level. As for the young people who will be involved in the local phases of the project, the consortium will give preference to youth and volunteers with fewer opportunities.

The project foresees 2 Transnational project meetings and 2 mobilities.
TPM1 will take place in order to clarify responsibilities and tasks, and start planning the flow of work. TPM2 will be held in the last months of the project, in order to facilitate a coherent dissemination as well as to evaluate the whole project.
The 2 mobility activities will definitely bring an added value to the project, since they are an essential step for creating and finalising the two foreseen Intellectual Outputs. The activities will be in the form of seminars, and will first of all provide the space and time for sharing, understanding, testing, adapting and selecting educational experiences, good practices and tools, as well as competences for the staff involved in the project.
Non Formal Education methodology combined with several techniques coming from other educational areas, such as art and theatre, will be our main methodological framework.
The seminars will enter the project themes in depth, allowing participants to exchange the skills, knowledge and attitude that are needed to acquire and foster a gender sensitive approach in an intercultural and interreligious dimension, learning from one another, in coherence with the principles already mentioned.

The main results expected from the project are a video advocacy campaign and the production of a good practices manual.These two outputs are in line with the underlined needs emerged from the partner organizations involved, namely raising awareness and giving more visibility to the gender issues, while facilitating the analysis of the complexity of the issue and mainstreaming a gender sensitive and inclusive approach in the EuroMediterranean area.

The project aims to have an impact at local, national and EuroMediterranean level. To reach it, the role of and the coordination with the associated partners is fundamental as they play an important role as multipliers of the impact itself.
On a local and national level, this project will help to create new partnerships with Ministries and Departments where partner organisations can develop regular educational programs that include the project topics, in order to outreach more beneficiaries in local communities. The impact of the advocacy will furthermore foster the application of gender and intercultural sensitive approach at a youth policy level on a local, regional and national dimension. On an international level, the dissemination of project results will be produced in all partners’ languages plus English to guarantee an effective impact and build structural change.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 86180 Eur

Project Coordinator

Giosef Torino – Marti Gianello Guida A.P.S. & Country: IT

Project Partners

• Aktive Kosmos
• I DARE FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
• STOWARZYSZENIE FABRYKA ROWNOSCI
• THE LEBANESE ASSOCIATION FOR AN INCLUSIVE CITIZENSHIP
• Young Women’s Christian Association