Going Green for Intercultural Peace - Booklet

8/8/2019 Going Green for Intercultural Peace - Booklet

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Youth Exchange

9th 18th May 2010

Lusakert, Armenia

Turkey e-genlik Dernegi

Armenia International Supporters of

Youth & the Environment (ISYE)

Georgia Youth For FutureUkraine NGO People

Poland Stacja Stronie Association

Latvia Environmental Youth Union (EYU)

Greece Environmental Group of Municipality of Kessariani


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Contents

Page 1 Contents

Page 2 Intro

Page 3 Project Summary

Page 4 Background & History

Page 5- 3 specific project aims and how they were achieved

Page 7 Project Preparation stage

Page 10 Project Main Activity

Page 15 Project Dissemination / Evaluation stage

Page 17 Conclusion

Page 18 Links


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IntroThis small booklet is mainly intended to show the results of the EU commission funded Youth In Action 3.1 Youth

Exchange called Going Green for Intercultural Peace.

As well as to show the results of this project, this booklets purpose is also to make this project more visible in

general, to continue to spread the message that this project was spreading (what can you do to improve our

environment?) and to show good practice by distributing this booklet amongst partner NGOs, to national agencies,

to interested youth, and to any other youth workers, youth, or NGOs working in the field of youth and the

environment.

Going Green for Intercultural Peace was active from 10/03/2010 until 17/08/2010. This includes the Preparation,

Main Activity and Evaluation stages. It was only possible due to the funding by the EU commissions Youth In

Action programme through the Turkish National Agency, coordinated by e-genclik Association and hosted by

ISYE.

In the following pages will be very briefly described and shown the details of this project, as well as providing

useful links on the last page for you, the reader, to become more active within your community.

Please read and enjoy!


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Going Green for Intercultural Peace

Summary and Main Aims / Objectives:

Going Green Intercultural Peace was a 10 day multi-lateral youth exchange themed on interculturalism and the

environment. It took place in Lusakert, Armenia, with the main activity lasting from the 9 th May 2010 until 18th May

2010, and the APV on 10 th and 11th April 2010, involving 42 participants from 7 countries. The main objectives

were to encourage positive integration of youth from different countries; to raise awareness about environmental

issues in Armenia & in the participants home countries and to relate these issues to a wider context with the aim

of integrating global change issues, such as sustainable development and climate change, into the intercultural

European arena; to enhance a sense of common identity within a European context; to celebrate the diversity ofintercultural youth; to promote international youth and Youth in Action program activities; and to establish &

expand contacts and networks for future cooperation in the international environmental youth field. Non-formal

education methods were used to meet these objectives. The main activities involved environmental issue debates;

intercultural dialogue; intercultural and environmental presentations created by the participants themselves; YiA

presentations; networking sessions; as well as the main project activity which was a creative and innovative group

process to produce a photo exhibition, a mini street-cleaning campaign and informative publication materials

addressing the environmental/intercultural issues arising from the project activity sessions, which was

shown/presented to the public in Yerevan during the main activity and in the participants home countries during

the evaluation stages.


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Project Background / History:

The idea originated from our concern for more environmental awareness-raising cooperation in the international

youth field. As we are in a rapidly changing period of time, in almost all ways (environmentally, globally, culturally...

etc) it is very easy for different branches of progress to separate and sometimes contradict each other from one

country to the next. We felt the need to encourage more international integration of youth from different cultures to

help inspire a more harmonious path of international progress, specifically with regard to environmental issues like

global climate change and sustainable development where there is a clear and definite space for public

participation in making a difference to national and international environmental policy through social activity and

awareness-raising campaigns, thus an underlying reason for this projects mini street -cleaning campaign and

photography exhibition is to spread/raise awareness about how the public can become more active in thedemocratic life of international policy-making (through info/links contained in the campaigns leaflets), as well as

sending the more direct message of how the public can NOW make a difference through their personal decisions

(such as not dropping rubbish on the streets or using a bike instead of a car). This project was chosen to be

directed to international youth because young people will shape our future progress. Our thinking is that by

addressing the participants intercultural diversity and unity, they can find cultural connections and diverse beauty

through which a common sense of identity can hopefully be developed. This common sense of identity is the

joining stronghold from which we wish to cultivate a cohesive feeling of international environmental

unity/cooperation which can be expanded on and cultivated both during this project (for the mini street cleaning

campaign and the photo exhibition) and after this project from the participants own newly-inspired initiative.


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Three Specific Objectives and how they were achieved:

1. PHOTO EXHIBITION To undergo creative group work sessions, stemming from the intercultural andenvironmental activities of the f irst few days, to produce a photo exhibition in collaboration with a local

photographer/graphic designer, the specific theme of which was WASTE whilst keeping within the more general

theme of interculturalism and the environment, which was presented to the general public in Yerevans Waldorf

School during the Main Activity, on 17th May 2010, and during which time (on the exhibition day) the participants

actively presented and discussed their work & activity themes with the school children and public who attended the

exhibition in an organised conversational session. This exhibition activity was also used as inspiration by each

group of participants from each country to present a similar exhibition in their home countries, as part of the follow-

up activity, after the main activity phase in Armenia was finished, and now we have the possibility of re-

producing/re-presenting these exhibitions a number of times again, in the future.


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2. GOING GREEN STREET-CLEANING CAMPAIGN - To produce a Going Green street-cleaning campaign in

collaboration with the same local photographer/graphic designer, which involved information leaflet/booklet

productions designed from the participants own initiative, themed specifically on making the streets cleaner.

These leaflets were distributed on the streets of Yerevan on the same day as the main activity exhibition, and then

again during a follow-up leaflet campaign during the evaluation stages of this project, and they can be continued to

be produced and distributed in Armenia as many times as needed. Follow-up leaflet campaigns were also

produced in the participants home countries during the evaluation phase of this project.

3. PUBLICATIONS To produce this information booklet and a DVD as dissemination materials, to highlight and

present the activities and results of this project. The DVD contains the leaflets produced for the mini street -

cleaning campaign; the main activity exhibition photos; general photos from the project; this information booklet inelectronic version; and additional linking/design material. You can ask for a copy of this projects DVD from e-

genclik Association or ISYE by [email protected]@hotmail.com.
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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THE PREPARATION STAGE:

The project preparation procedures included all partners selecting their 6 participants (7 countries, to make a total

of 42 participants); bonding their groups; the Host and Coordinating Organisations (ISYE from Armenia and e-genclik Association from Turkey) giving all the necessary project info and agreeing all details of the project with the

partners; specific preparation requirements for each partner organisation; and the Advanced Planning Visit (APV).

Before the Main Activity started, the following specific preparation stage activities were carried out, which related to

preparing for the Main Activity:

Every partner organisation helped their participants to come up with

ideas/themes about the main activity photo exhibition and compile a

selection of photos from their home country based around their ideas

and themes to take to the main activity in Armenia to use in the

exhibition discussions & photography session group work activities asinspiration & discussion material.

Every partner organisation

helped their participants to come up with ideas and have inspirations

about the content and running of the Going Green street campaign

activity which took place during the main activity in Armenia. This was

so that the whole group already had lots of formed ideas to work with

by the time the participants arrived at the main activity.


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Every partner organisation helped their participants

to create a Country Presentation which they

performed during the Main Activity. These werevaried and different, depending on the country,

partner NGO, and group of participants, but all of

them involved working together in their groups to

creatively present their countries culture. The

groups prepared to bring food, drink, clothes,

cultural objects, CDs, short films, and even musical

instruments which represented their culture. Most

countries groups also prepared to teach the rest of

the Youth Exchange group their country dancesand songs. Some countries groups were better

prepared than others ;) However all countries

cultural presentations during the main activity were

effective and a great experience for the other youth exchange participants.

Every partner organisation helped their participants to create an

Environmental Presentation which they showed during the

Main Activity. The groups worked together to decide what was

the most important environmental issues affecting them which

they wanted to show/present to the whole group in Armenia.Some countries groups brought backing materials for their

presentations, like short environmental films, documentaries, or

information leaflets.


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Advanced Planning Visit (APV):

On 9th11th April 2010 was this Youth Exchanges Advanced Planning Visit (APV), where the representatives from

each partner organisation came to Armenia to meet together at the venue in Lusakert to discuss and finalise all

details of the project. All issues were talked about during this meeting, it was extensive, and everyone developed a

good clear understanding of the project requirements & details from this meeting, it was an essential part of the

preparation stage, not only because it was the chance for every Partner NGO to meet eachother in person which

bonded the partners, but also because everyone understood the project clearly after this meeting, the Main Activity

schedule was improved according to everyones input and the project activities became very clear so every partner

NGO was able to be fully prepared for the Main Activity.


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THE MAIN ACTIVITY:

The Main Activity involved all 42 participants coming to Armenia, Lusakert, for 10 days of group mixing,

discussions, session-making, creative presentations, cultural games, environmental debates, active thinking,

making the street campaign and producing the photo exhibition. It

was a busy, active 10 days! We battled through language barriers,

cultural differences, personal differences, health problems and

temperature changes to successfully complete all the planned

activities, positively influence the participants and those affected by

the participants activities, as well as give the participants memories

which will hopefully last for their lifetime.


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DAY 1 (Arrival) DAY 2 DAY 3 DAY 4 DAY 5 DAY 6 DAY 7 DAY 8 DAY 9 DAY 10 (Dep)

sunday monday tuesday wednesday thursday friday saturday sunday monday tuesday

9 May 10 May 11 May 12 May 13 May 14 May 15 May 16 May 17 May 18 May

08:30-09:00

09:00-09:30

09:30-10:00 Energiser - ARM Energiser - GE Energiser - UKR Energiser - PL Energiser - GR10:00-10:30

10:30-11:00

11:00-11:30

11:30-12:00 Break Break Break Break12:00-12:30

12:30-13:00

13:00-13:30

13:30-14:00

14:00-14:30

14:30-15:00

15:00-15:30 Energiser - GR Energiser - TU Energiser - LV Energiser - ARM Energiser - GE

15:30-16:00

16:00-16:3016:30-17:00

17:00-17:30 Break Break17:30-18:00 Break Break

18:00-18:30

18:30-19:00

19:00-19:30

19:30-20:00 CULTURAL TIPS Reflection Group Reflection Group Reflection Group Reflection Group Reflection Group Reflection Group

20:00-20:30

20:30-21:00 Dinner Dinner Dinner

21:00-21:30

21:30-22:00

22:00-22:30

22:30-23:00

23:00-23:30

23:30-00:00

Going Green for Intercultural Peace - Main Activity Schedule

Breakfast

ARM - Armenia,

Caucuses &

International env

FREE TIME

BreakfastBreakfast

ARMENIA -

International &

Environmental

Evening

Photo

preparation

session

PO -

Team Building

TU - Local &

Global

challenges

UKR -

Team Building

Finalising

Campaign

GE & LV -

International &

Environmental

Evening

Dinner

UKR & PO -

International &

Environmental

Evening

Breakfast Breakfast

Street Campaign

intro & creative

group work

Dinner

schedule

presentation

Intro & welcome

Departures

BreakfastBreakfastBreakfast

Welcome Party

Arrivals

LV -

EnvironmentalSimulation

Game

Lunch Break Lunch Break

GE - Cultural

Simulation

Game

Dinner

GR & TU -

International &

Environmental

Evening

Go to Yerevan

Photo Exhibition

in Yerevan &

Living Library

(with packed

lunch and

relaxed free

time)Photo-taking

session-time in

Yerevan (with

packed lunch)

Street Campaign

in Yerevan

Making photo

DVD

Return to

Lusakert

Photo-taking

session - time in

Yerevan (with

packed lunch)

Farewell

Party

Reflection &

Final Evaluation

Return toLusakert

GR - What is

culture? Whystereotypes?

Excursion in

local area to

Lusakert Bio-

Gas plant

Campaign leaflet

designing &

preparation

Go to Yerevan

Lunch Break

Breakfast

Putting all

photos together

Dinner

Organising

photos and

choosing photos

for the exhibition

Dinner

Go to Yerevan

Return to

Lusakert

Dinner

FREE TIME

Lunch Break

NGO

Presentations

YiA

Presentation &

Youth Pass

Dissemination

Activities

FREE TIME

Dissemination

Activities

Lunch Break

The schedule that the

participants followedwas an improved

programme adapted

from all the inputs

during the APV.

During the APV all the

partners

representatives gave

their views on how to

improve the main

activity schedule and

so the final main

activity schedule was

produced as a team

during that APV

meeting. The Main

Activity schedule was

as follows:

During the discussions and session work, the participants looked at many different cultural and environmental

issues. Non-formal methods were used all the time to provide relaxed but effective and inclusive communications.

From the results of the main activity, if we can take some kind of general conclusion of the results, it might be

something like this:


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This is a very important time for youth to be active in their community about

environmental issues because the entire world is currently going through some of the

most major and challenging changes that it has ever faced, and it is possible to turn

these changes into a good direction, better for the environment, rather than letting our

environment be destroyed by the many many negatives factors alive and acting against

it today. The youth of today can especially make a difference both by acting more

positive for the environment themselves, as well as positively influences others to

behave better to the environment.

Becoming active in your community is easier than it might first seem. You simply have

to first realise what message you want to say to people, then go out and say it!

There is not one way to improve our global environmental

situation, not one great solution, rather all the many many

small positive changes will add up and make a difference

in the big picture with time, so to make a big difference,

you have to start with the simple and small.

For this project we concentrated on the simple message

of making our streets cleaner by not dropping rubbish.

This message was not going to change the world but it

did contribute in a small way to making a positive

difference for the people who were influenced by our

projects street campaign and photo exhibition. Especially

the group discussions with the school children in the

school where the exhibition was.


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You dont need a Youth In Action project to become

active and make a small difference, simply find your

message and tell people!

By uniting together, internationally, we can make a

bigger difference, and especially on the European

level, we can make a difference by lobbying the EU to

make changes to their environmental policy.

One of the best and easiest ways to take part in

international change is by taking part in petition

signing which many major lobbying NGOs areproducing regularly on many different issues. This is a

good, easy, modern and effective way of making a

difference because anyone can easily take part,

simply sign up to petition emails through your email to the NGO which you want to represent who is doing these

lobbying petitions, and when they send you a petition to sign, read it and if you agree, then add your name and

forward it to any friends who you think might be interested. This process is totally free and you dont need to take

part if you dont want to. The aim is purely to gather as many names as possible who agree with the issue that the

NGO is trying to lobby against, so that every persons signature can be presented to a member of council or a

parliament representative who is in charge of policy-making and if there are enough peoples signatures then it

shows this policy-making representative that many many of her/his citizens demand that this policy be changed.

This is the modern method which public pressure can make a difference. The links to some NGOs who are doing

great public petition lobbying are included in this leaflet on the last page, so please follow these links and become

active by adding your name to a petition to change our environmental policy for the better!


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Other more direct ways of becoming active in your community can be creatively showing what you feel about in the

streets directly to the public. This direct way is up to you what you want to show and how you do it. For this project

we did 2 types of this direct public awareness raising message giving by making a small 2-sided A4 leaflet themed

on waste and distributing it to the public by doing a street campaign and by producing a photos exhibition

highlighting the negative effects of dropping rubbish and also showing the ways how you can change your lifestyle

to become more environmentally friendly.

After discussing the most

important environmental

issues for our group of 42

participants (from 7

different countries), it was

agreed that even though

different cultures

definitely have a different

approach to the same

environmental issues, it

was generally agreed that

we ALL need to work

together to make the

biggest difference, on a

local and global scale.


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THE DISSEMINATION/ EVALUATION STAGE:

The dissemination stage of this project involved every partner NGO evaluating the whole project with their group ofparticipants and doing specific dissemination activities to highlight the results of this project, to spread the

message of this Youth Exchange, to promote this project and the Youth In Action Programme, and to try to make

the results of this project have a bigger knock-on effect & be more sustainable with follow-up activites. The specific

dissemination activities were as follows:

Every partner organisation helped their 6 returned participants (and others who wished to take part) to produce, at

least once, another photo exhibition based on the exhibition that was made in Armenia, with the creative changes

or suitable adaptations of the material needed to fit their home country.

Every partner organisation helped their 6 returned participants (and others who wished to take part) to produce, atleast once, another street campaign based on the street campaign that was done in Armenia, with the creative

changes or suitable adaptations of the material needed to fit their home country.

Every partner organisation helped the Turkish Coordinating Organisation to make a small information bookletabout this project (this is the booklet that you are reading ) and distribute it amongst themselves, their members,

their contacts, other NGOs, youth workers, youth and the general public, appropriately.


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Every partner organisation helped the Turkish Coordinating Organisation to make a DVD which contains the

leaflets produced for all the street campaigns; the exhibition photos; this information booklet in its electronic

version; photos in general from the Youth Exchange; Youth in Action material and links. This DVD was copied anddistributed to this projects partner NGOs, their members, their contacts, other NGOs, youth workers, youth and the

general public, appropriately.

Also the compulsory project final report was completed and given to the Turkish National Agency by the

Coordinating Organisation, e-genclik Association, after the main Activity.


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CONCLUSION AND THANKS:

In conclusion, we hope that you, the reader, have learned something positive from reading about this youth

exchange and that you feel some inspiration to become active yourself in your community, and if you are already

active then we hope that the links below and the information in this booklet will be useful for you to continue!

If you wish to find out more information or contact this projects Coordinating or Host Organisation, or any other

NGOs or people involved, please refer to the links below.

The Turkish Coordinating Organisation and the Armenian Host organisation for this youth exchange, e-genclik

Association (Turkey) and International Supporters of Youth and the Environment (ISYE, Armenia), would like to

thank the EU commissions Youth In Action programme for the funding to make this project happen, without the

funding received we could not have been able to bring the 42 participants from the 7 different countries to do the

activities that we did. We wish to thank the Turkish National agency for accepting this projects application after itwas applied for to them in September 2009, and after for issuing the project funds and helping and overseeing this

project on the whole, from the application stages through to the final report. More thanks is for the partner NGOs

involved in this project Youth for Future from Georgia, Stacja Stronie from Poland, Environmental Youth Union

from Latvia, NGO People from Ukraine and Environmental Group of the Municipality of Kessariani from Greece -

and all of those representatives from these partner NGOs who organised their participants and helped facilitate

this project in cooperation with the coordinating and host NGO. Ofcourse huge thanks is to all the participants from

each of the 7 countries involved for coming to Armenia to take part in this youth exchange and make it a success.

Finally most thanks is from all the partners and the project team to Aydin Fenerli and Ash Dunlop who lead the

coordinating and hosting of this project, working incredibly hard to make this project happen, from before the startto after after the end!

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication [communication] reflectsthe views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of

the information contained therein.


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LINKS:

ORGANISATIONS:e-genclik Association Turkish coordinating organisation for this project: www.e-genclik.org.tr - afenerli@e-

genclik.org.tr

International Supporters of Youth and the Environment (ISYE) Armenian host organisation for this project:

[email protected]

Youth for Future Georgian partner organisation for this project:[email protected]

Environmental Youth Union (EYU) Latvian partner organisation for this project:[email protected]

Stacja Stronje Association Polish partner organisation for this project:[email protected]

NGO People Ukrainian partner organisation for this project:[email protected]

Environmental Group of Municipality of Kessariani Greek partner organisation for this project:

[email protected]
http://www.e-genclik.org.tr/http://www.e-genclik.org.tr/mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.e-genclik.org.tr/


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YOUTH IN ACTION PROGRAMME INFORMATION CONTACT LINK PAGE:

http://ec.europa.eu/youth/youth/doc152_en.htm

This link is to the Youth In Action website contact list page. On this page you will find easy links to contact:

Every National Agency (NA) working within the YiA programme (if you want any information on the YiA

programme then contact your NA)

Contact information to directly contact the European Commission

The contact for the SALTO Resource Centre (which provides youth work and training resources)

EURODESK contact information (EURODESK is a European network responsible for the dissemination of

European Union information).

Other useful contact links

The homepage of the Youth In Action programme is:http://ec.europa.eu/youth/index_en.htm

SOME RELIABLE INTERNATIONAL NGOS USING THE PUBLIC PETITIONING METHOD FOR POLICY-CHANGING LOBBYING:

AVAAZ -www.avaaz.org/en/contact

FRIENDS OF THE EARTH international homepage-http://www.foei.org/en/get-involved

350.org -http://www.350.org/

SHARE THE WORLDS RESOURCES - http://www.stwr.org/

GLOBAL RESPONSE -http://globalresponse.org/index01.php ALLIANCE FOR A NEW HUMANITY -http://www.anhglobal.org/
http://ec.europa.eu/youth/youth/doc152_en.htmhttp://ec.europa.eu/youth/youth/doc152_en.htmhttp://ec.europa.eu/youth/index_en.htmhttp://ec.europa.eu/youth/index_en.htmhttp://ec.europa.eu/youth/index_en.htmhttp://www.avaaz.org/en/contacthttp://www.avaaz.org/en/contacthttp://www.avaaz.org/en/contacthttp://www.foei.org/en/get-involvedhttp://www.foei.org/en/get-involvedhttp://www.foei.org/en/get-involvedhttp://www.350.org/http://www.350.org/http://www.350.org/http://globalresponse.org/index01.phphttp://globalresponse.org/index01.phphttp://globalresponse.org/index01.phphttp://www.anhglobal.org/http://www.anhglobal.org/http://www.anhglobal.org/http://www.anhglobal.org/http://globalresponse.org/index01.phphttp://www.350.org/http://www.foei.org/en/get-involvedhttp://www.avaaz.org/en/contacthttp://ec.europa.eu/youth/index_en.htmhttp://ec.europa.eu/youth/youth/doc152_en.htm

Documents

Going Green for Intercultural Peace - Booklet