PROCJECT SUMMARY

Human rights movement has seen dramatic progress in recent decades. However, recent rise of rightwing populism shows that gains made are still fragile. Thus, it is important that young people continue fighting for human rights in their communities. This is why young people have decided to create this youth exchange with a goal to better understand human rights, especially in relation to the right to education.

In 2012, the European Council adopted a Strategic Framework on Human Rights and Democracy, accompanied by an action plan to implement the framework. Some of the areas on which this framework relates to include:

-Combating violence against women and girls

-Protecting the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people

-Protecting human rights defenders

-Complying with international humanitarian law (refugees and asylum seekers ) –  Dialogues on human rights.

This project is important because in these areas partner countries on this project lag behind Northern and Western European countries with respect to human right protections. The problem is not just inadequate laws, but discriminatory social attitudes.

For this reason, it is important for young people to engage in these issues to fight stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination. By spreading awareness of the need to protect human rights in the society will also put pressure on the institutions to take human rights violations seriously. This is important because one of the key problem in partner countries is that we often have human rights good laws, but they are not implemented, and they are not implemented because of stereotypes and prejudices.

The objectives of the youth exchange are:

1 . improve the understanding of the concept of human rights among young people

Young people will better understand history of the human rights movement and how human rights are a crucial part of European values. They will also learn about the key documents on the European and global level, aimed at guaranteeing human rights. Participants will focus on three areas which young people decided are the most pressing and controversial in their societies:

-sexuality and gender, i.e. equality between men and women and between heterosexual/cisgender majority and sexual and gender minorities (LGBTI)

-race, ethnicity and religion, i.e. equality between the majority and ethnic, racial and religious minorities

-right to education, with a special focus on integration of vulnerable minorities into the educational system.

These topics were selected by young people because these are the most pressing and controversial issues in their countries. LGBTI issues are taboo in most partner countries, nationalism is also very strong in most partner countries with violations of human rights of their ethnic and religious minorities not uncommon. Young people have especially chosen the topic of refugees, which is one of the most contentious issues in their societies and it often highlight racial, religious and ethnic prejudices in their countries.

Obtaining a good education is one of the preconditions for having a happy and successful life as an adult. Therefore, participants will focus on challenges young people face in obtaining good education, like rising costs of higher education, underfunded public schools and bullying and discrimination in the educational institutions, which can limit access to good education to youth from vulnerable groups.

2 . improve the abilities of partner organisations to implement non-formal education activities

Most partners are schools and many partners have experience in education projects of ERASMUS+, but not in youth projects. Through this projects partners will improve their ability to implement international projects with a special focus on their extracurricular activities and non-formal education methods with their students. Furthermore, they will create networks with schools from other countries which they can use for future projects in both education and youth segment of ERASMUS+. Finally, partners will improve their work with young people by learning to let young people be in charge of selecting and implementing activities based on non-formal learning. In this youth exchange, the participants will create activities and projects which will later be implemented in their schools.