Eastern Europe Open Boundaries Erasmus Project

Project Title

Eastern Europe Open Boundaries

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 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Social dialogue; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

According to the Council Conclusions of 2015 the further development of youth work across Europe should be accompanied by a strengthened cooperation among the EU countries. The Expert Group on Quality of Youth work has produced a common framework for further developments in this field of action. Based on the recommendation of the Expert Group the EEOB-Project’s main objective is to contribute to the enhancement of quality of youth work in the specific field of racism and violence behaviours, antidemocratic, nationalistic and populistic tendencies among youth, in particular in the eastern European countries.
This approach sees tight entanglement with a second priority of the European Strategy for Youth which promote social inclusion. This project operated therefore on the basis of the Paris Declaration of the EU Commission of the 17th March 2015. While the more intolerant and group-oriented violence behaviour in recent years has been directed toward vulnerable group such refugees and immigrants, the roots of such behaviour can be also observed to be directed to members of the same culture or society who show unconventional customs and (sexual) preferences. By all differentiations to be made, obstacles for social inclusion can be found in a particular mind-set, a traditional fear of the “others” and a perceived menace to the belonging culture. The rational of this project was therefore derived by the arisen antidemocratic, racist and nationalistic movements of the last years within Europe. Thus, by tackling intolerance and promoting European democratic values among youth, this project intended to contribute not only to enhancement of quality in youth work but also to a more cohesive and inclusive society. Main objectives were: a) Establish interdisciplinary / internationally usable qualification concepts for the pedagogical tackling of democracy-defying attitude such as racism and neo-Nazism, homosexual discrimination and violence behaviour toward minorities and subcultures. b) youth work’s European organizations are in a position to implement their own concepts and to qualify specialists (youth workers) for the thematic areas, thereby contributing to the reduction of racism, anti-Islamism, homophobia and other refusal structures.
The methodology applied to reach these objectives consisted in activities and products for develop and strength a human rights-oriented, professional attitude of specialists as well as their knowledge of democracy, racist and gender related discrimination, social power relations and origin, culture and gender as structural categories of society. A further step in the methodology consisted in linking different forms of discrimination and rejection, making the interrelations between sexist and homophobic attitudes, as well as the racist images of gender and the connections between racism and sexism visible. Here the elements of awareness, interconnection, spill-over and general attitude grounded the methodological approach.
The methodology applied in EEOB offers the opportunity for the creation of individual design of activities. Implementation of this methodology resulted in following outputs: 1) a qualification concept for youth workers in dealing with democratically promoting measures in the field of prevention of racism, homophobia and other refusals as well as the inclusive measures for refugees and migrants; 2) conceptual materials for actions and processes for the individual design of activities to promote democratic understanding, inclusive attitudes and dismantling of racism, violent radicalism and general discrimination. The project EEOB provided a bespoke and innovative qualification concept that addresses a wide range of skills which are both relevant to youth workers and youngsters. Dissemination activties such as three multiplier events (target groups: youth workers, students of social work, employees and stakeholder in administration of public services and schools) have being implemented during the 18 month. Tests of the material were run during projekt’s activties of the partners. EEOB directly addressed at least 1000 people (YW and marginalized youngsters in seven EU countries). Its long term general impact is intended to go far beyond this number in the coming years through the use of IO1 and IO2 by other associations and trainers. Most relevant impact was directed toward organisations of Youth work, quality of their work, implementation of innovative methods and design for training course and activties. A long term impact on youngster’s attitude toward different culture and subcultures is targeted. In this regard the biggest impact has being intended to be on local and regional level. The english version and the translations of the two IOs in seven languages will ensure their usage on european scale. EEOB wants to contribute to a positive general dynamics in the european society and among stakeholders toward political awareness, social inclusion and tolerance.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 106680 Eur

Project Coordinator

Arbeitsgemeinschaft Jugendfreizeitstätten Sachsen e.V. & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Rightchallenge – Associação
• FUNDACJA DOBRA WOLA
• SDRUZHENIE WALK TOGETHER
• KULTURALIS KAPCSOLATOKERT ALAPITVANY
• A.D.E.L. – ASSOCIATION FOR DEVELOPMENT, EDUCATION AND LABOUR
• Asociacija “Aktyvus jaunimas”