Adventure of a lifetime

Program: Erasmus+ Youth Key Action 1, Youth Exchange
Title: Adventure of a lifetime
Partners: I Participate – Συμμετέχω – hosting organization (Greece) NaturKultur e.V. (Germany), Associazione Elios (Italy), Center for Intercultural Dialogue (CID) (FYROM) and Gençlik Çalışmaları Derneği (Turkey)
Duration: September 2018-May 2019

This project is a direct result of a great phenomenon, the Syrian Civil War, that has raised to a new class of homeless and stateless people, living in a condition of constant insecurity. People who the last years sought asylum in different parts of the world, including the EU, that is now facing a great crisis, not only related to grave political and financial problems, but also strongly connected with a great number of changes and challenges inside the society.As a result, in many countries reactions of fear, exclusion and xenophobic opinions within their society are becoming common especially among young people. Extreme political movements supporting oppression and violence against vulnerable groups based on their supposed inferiority, are getting more and more popular. Young people have to face a great number of changes within their society along with financial challenges (for the majority of the participating countries).

The “Adventure of a lifetime” youth exchange (Erasmus+ KA1) targets 25 young people (18 – 26 years old) and 5 team leaders (aged 18+) of the 5 European countries which are mainly facing now the Refugee Crisis: Greece, Turkey, Germany, Italy and FYROM (6 participants from each involved country). It is a ten-day YE (including travel days) hosted in Larissa, Greece at 13-22 of December 2018.

The objectives of the “Adventure of a lifetime” exchange are:

  • Give participants the chance to share good practices upon the confrontation of the racism and xenophobia in a local/national and international level.
  • Increase the empathy towards the refugees issue and populations. Help the participants to develop a totally new mindset and ensure the impact in their whole society through follow up activities.
  • Motivate youths to actively fight against discrimination and organize further actions. Provide them a practical set of non formal education and experiential learning tools and methods in relation to the refugees issue and the respect of human rights.
  • Encourage the international dialogue and the collaboration of the whole EU and especially of the five participating countries that have been mainly affected.
  • Offer participants the possibility to experience non – formal education and experiential learning on a personal level.
  • Inform youths about the Erasmus+ actions, aims and values.