DIscrimination - the key word of the century is over, but new projects will start

The 10 days of the project have passed, the project is over, all the activities planned done and a few extra also. Many friendships have been initiated and hopefully will go stronger in time. A lot of future projects have been discussed and its only up to us from now on to make a difference and to act, not only plan.

The first days after the project were really sad as people started to arrive home, back to their daily lives, away from all the other 35 people that they had around for 10 days. I must confessed I shared the feeling, but I am confident that this will only motivate people to keep their word and respect their promises of futures projects and initiatives.

For many of the participants this was their first Youth in Action Exchange and I'm happy that I was the one to facilitate this experience and give them a taste of what an youth exchange is all about. I really hope that the objectives of raising awareness on discrimination were reached and all of the participants will try to make a difference in their community.

For My Child My Heart Association this project was a starting point of many projects to follow and I would like to thank all of the people that trusted us to get the job done.

New partner from Turkey...

As the Spanish partner couldn't attend this project anymore we spoke to some friends of ours from Turkey to come in their place and join the anti-discrimination group.

So we will have at the project participants from the Turkish Association Adventurer Peace Pigeons, that are excited of coming to Romania and be apart of this project.

7 days to go until the beginning of the youth exchange....let the Party Start!

The project

Discrimination – the key word of the century is a multilateral youth exchange, involving 6 promoters from: Hungary, Greece, Turkey, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania, organized by My Child My Heart Association, through Youth in Action Program.

The project is promoting active youth participation, by combating discrimination and social exclusion using public manifestations as the main tool. 36 youngsters will work together preparing an event about this theme, inspired from there daily lives and the activities they will do during the project, in order to raise awareness in the community about the above stated key issue.

The project is structured in 2 parts: advanced planning visit (APV) and the youth exchange.

All of the activities will take place in Muncel Camp. The APV was during July 9th -11th, 2010, for the group leaders to know the facilities, accommodation and eating conditions, to establish the last details regarding the activities and logistics.

This is a preparation of the youth exchange that will take place during August 30th – September 8th, 2010. The youth exchange is planned in such a manner that the participants will have workshops and debates on discrimination, but also sessions to organize a public event, to raise awareness in the community on situation of discrimination. They will organize and decide regarding the activities and objects used at the event.

So far in organizing this exchange I’ve already confronted a lot of life learning situations so..just let the games begin!