International Volunteering Archivi | New Humanity

Network in the Mediterranean Sea for Youth Education

Ana Clara — Wed, 01 May 2024 08:48:50 +0000

From April 29 to 30, the “Centro Internazionale studenti Giorgio La Pira” opened its doors to welcome project partners from Croatia, Egypt, Italy, Lebanon, France, and Spain to share experiences and working methods as part of the Erasmus+ project “M.E.D.I.T.erraNEW.” With New Humanity NGO as a partner, the project aims to inspire each other, broaden mutual horizons, and create a strong collaborative network across the Mediterranean Sea to transform it from a basin of death into a cradle of life and cooperation.

The first day’s work session focused on intercultural aspects. The “Centro Internazionale studenti Giorgio La Pira” presented to the partners the vision of Mayor Giorgio La Pira, its operational mechanisms, and the “Crescendo” project, which is an intervention in global citizenship education in secondary schools. International colleagues had the opportunity to attend an interactive presentation of the “Crescendo” project and were also actively involved in the project experience. As the guests admitted, the presentation made them realize the deep-rooted stereotypes in our minds and society and the resulting narratives, which often lead to conflict situations.

As Anna from the “Living Peace – International” organization concluded:

“It is very important to work with conflicts and live through them, (…) they are part of our life; we cannot simply close our eyes or run away. It is important to experience them together to better understand it and ourselves. Stereotypes create prejudices, and this cannot lead to peace. Only by living together can we all understand this better, which is a crucial preventive step for further conflict escalation.”

Our French partners added:

“To maintain peace, it is essential to work and educate our children to help them grow and become human beings capable of conflict management and aware of the importance of peace.”

During the second day’s work session, the center shared the teaching method of the Italian language and culture “Italian in Florence,” a language school with a specific intercultural and inclusive methodology. The guests were introduced to the Center’s long-term project where language is seen as a key tool for integration and a crucial aspect of creating dialogue. Our foreign guests had the opportunity to look behind the scenes of the Italian language courses and, for those with no prior knowledge of Italian, to learn something new.

“Mare Nostrum” or “Our Sea” was the Roman name for the Mediterranean Sea, encapsulating a sense of regional belonging. Only by creating networks, improving dialogue among people, and focusing on humanity and collaboration instead of competition, can we strengthen the sense of broader regional inclusion. The “M.E.D.I.T.erraNEW” project held two work sessions in Florence, which created new collaborative networks across the sea and made some steps towards transforming the Mediterranean Sea from a basin of death into a more inclusive Mare Nostrum.

L'articolo Network in the Mediterranean Sea for Youth Education proviene da New Humanity.

Breaking Rays Project: “Young Reporters for Change”

tomaso — Fri, 31 May 2019 13:01:00 +0000

Project Presentation

Summary:

The project “Breaking Rays” will be implemented by 10 organizations both from EU MS and partner countries, involving 4 different continents.

In the light of high unemployment rates youth is facing nowadays worldwide, there is an economic as well as a personal cost: young people are not being allowed to work to their full potential and this could often lead to vulnerability and social disengagement of a generation full of energy that should contribute to inclusive growth in their countries.

One particular area today presents an opportunity for young people: In recent years in fact the ICT (information and communication technology) sector has been a large driver of GDP growth in many ACP, Latin America and Asian countries, primarily due to growth in mobile technology and internet use.

Inside the ICT field a sector that shows high potential is the news production and distribution: as the world becomes more globally interdependent, it is vital for people to understand that what is happening outside their countries has a direct impact on their lives and their country (as migration flows towards Europe demonstrates), in order to share problems and best practices, underlining solutions useful to influence decision making processes and prevent crises

For this reason the project aims to combine training activities oriented to develop in young people professional skills on reporting and communication of news, with a very modern approach, together with the civic purpose to offer visibility to local communities’ needs and experiences, giving space and value for citizens’ participation. The project will be developed through 3 mobility training activities in IT, BR and PHI which are complementary in order to build up some film-makers’ professional profiles.

The project title “Breaking rays” (quoting the technical journalism expression “Breaking News”) underlines the will to focus on positive and constructive social commitment of associations and grass roots NGOs, connecting them in an international platform which could amplify the impact of such actions and stimulate the replicability in other communities: this so called “glocal” approach will contribute to overcome a feeling of isolation and “not being listened to” by centres of power that local contexts are suffering and to raise the quality of local reporters in communicating their stories.

In this sense, the established network owns a strong potential putting together international NGOs, an enterprise working in communication/media and local NGOs in 4 different continents, offering a possible way to face educational challenge and unemployment through synergies among various stakeholders.

Acquired skills will foster the quality of staff in partner organization of partner countries and their potentials to elaborate successful projects thanks to a more powerful communication strategy: on the other side local communities’ capacities to influence all levels of decision-making will be reinforced.

Key-words:

Youngsters, Reporter, Audio-Video, Positive news.

Plan of Activities:

3 mobility activities:

29 June -7 July 2017: 9 days of training in Castelgandolfo (Italy) about social documentary and story-telling (goals and production-making). For 22 young people (2 from each partner)
3-10 February 2017: 8 days of training at the “Mariapolis Ginetta” Center (Brazil), about social communication, including study-visitis to NGOs engaged into the fraternity promotion and possibility to realise interviews and reports from the local situation. For 22 young people (2 from each partner).
27 June – 4 July 2017: 8 days of training in the Philipines, about live communication management of an international event. For 50 participants (40 young people and 10 trainers) during the days before the GenFest event.

Each local partner will realise a least 3 audio-video reports about relevant experiences at the end of the training period.

Audio-visual material about the GenFest will be gathered and produced on the occasion of that international event as well and will promote all the good practices linked with the promotion of the principle of fraternity.

An internet platform will gather and promote such good practices. A mobile/tablet application will be created and further managed by New Humanity.