BITISI has sent 5 Georgian participants to Bansko, Bulgaria where they attended youth exchange “Social Inclusion for Better Future” covered by Erasmus +.

Dates: November 20 – December 2, 2020

Place: Bansko, Bulgaria

Participating countries: Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Ukraine, Turkey, Italy.

Project Description

“Social Inclusion for Better Future” was an inclusive youth exchange for young people, especially ethnic minorities, descendants of immigrants, people with social/ educational/ economic and geographical obstacles. During the exchange, we are shared and found ways for integrating people into society.

The main objectives for the project:
– To generate an inclusive sense of belonging and identity;
– To improve the sense for tolerance among young people;
– To enhance the importance of diverse values like the importance of maintaining pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity, and equality;
– To empower young people to find their own way in life;
– To communicate and cooperate in order to reach common goals in an international environment and develop common values;

By implementing the project, we gave chance young people, especially people with fewer opportunities to travel to Bulgaria, meet others with different backgrounds; improve their sense of tolerance; share practices and then be a useful member of their societies. By that we mean – participants were asked to disseminate results and improve the situation in their communities in terms of tolerance.

Activities

During the project, we offered inclusive games, workshops, presentations, study visits so that participants were able to share practices, identify each others’ uniqueness and respect it.

The topics used:
– What we do every day and how we unconsciously and unconsciously exclude people,
– How discrimination, non-tolerance, lack of integration and inclusion people who are affected by them;
– What is the cost of segregation, non-tolerance, and discrimination and what are the long-term consequences;
– How do they produce other problems;
– What can we do to start changes in order to make an impact on the local communities;

Activities were designed in a way that participants had role-played process, through which they realized their response in a specific situation. Every day in the project had its symbolic name and theme. According to the theme, they had various activities and workshops. In activities and process focus was on themselves, their environment, working style, reactions and way of thinking. Workshops involved activities where they implemented what they learned.

On one hand, we included young people, volunteers, active citizens (age 16-28), on the other hand, people with fewer opportunities with the backgrounds of cultural differences, social obstacles, educational difficulties, economic obstacles, and geographical obstacles. By using our inclusive methods, we ensured their equal/ proactive participation and fairways of learning/ developing skills.

Impact

The main impact we created on participants was to empower them to find their own way in life and create success by adopting a proactive attitude and becoming more aware of their potential. Participants became aware of their thoughts and took action beyond thoughts. Since 50% participants were young people who had fewer opportunities, their new experience and the knowledge that they gained participating in this project gave them the opportunity to change their attitude and behavior, improve their self-confidence, as they had faced the problem of integrating themselves. Participants became more proactive in life and local communities by getting engaged in creating new projects and campaigns for their communities and transfered the knowledge and experience acquired during the exchange to others.

You can read stories of participants HERE.