Training Seminar: "Place and Role of minorities in the Euromed context: ethnic, linguistic and religious"

 

The Team

From Left to Right : Ali Oktey KOC (trainer), Irùne LAUZIRAKA (Basque Government Representative), Bernard ABRIGNANI (Coordinator of SALTO-YOUTH Euromed RC), Zurine ARRUZA (Coordinator of the Training seminar), Tamara CUPRIAN (Rapporteur) and Justine ABISAAD (trainer).

The website

The team members have created a specific website devoted to this training seminar : http://www.beygem.com/minorities/

Background

Within this framework, the SALTO Youth Euromed Resource Centre with the support of the Basque Government and the collaboration of the Spanish NA for the Youth in Action Programme are willing to develop for the first time this training course about the place and role of minorities in the Euromed context.

Specificity of the venue

Prehistoric man came to the Western foothills of the Pyrenees in search of a place to settle and live. Close to the natural border - formed by the mountains that stretch across the land joining the Iberian Peninsula to the rest of Europe - he found what he was looking for. The Basques have lived uninterruptedly in this small region since the beginning of recorded time by maintaining their age-old cultural traditions, and keeping their historic identity alive, the Basques provide a link with man's distant past. Euskara, the Basque language, is probably the oldest surviving language in Europe. As the Basques, several other minorities in Europe and in Meda countries have lived uninterruptedly in small areas and kept alive culture, traditions and more generally their identity throughout the centuries.

AIM

In order to know more about the reality of minorities in the Euromed frame this training course aims at:

• increasing participants knowledge about the situation of minorities in the Euromed context: history, law, existing and persecuted minorities...;
• facilitating the sharing of experiences and realities about minorities in the countries involved;
• offering a special focus on ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities, having as a starting point the reality of the hosting region;
• providing participants with a better knowledge about the new Youth in Action programme and the Euromed Youth Programme III;
• acquiring competences and learning new methods that will help participants to develop projects in the Euromed frame focus on the topic of minorities.

Profile of participants

The course is intended to be an opportunity for further training for youth workers and youth leaders who:

• are experienced in the Youth field and familiar with these topics and ideally working with minorities;
• are open to enrich their knowledge and awareness regarding the other cultures;
• are committed to prepare themselves for the above-mentioned subjects, previous to their arrival and to do the remote work requested by the team in case of selection;
• are motivated to undergo training and able to attend the course for its full duration;
• are supported by their organisation and have green light for implementing a Euro-Med YOUTH project;
• are able to communicate and work in at least one of the two working languages of this training course (English and French)
• are residents in a European Union Member State or in a Mediterranean Partner country signatory to the Barcelona Declaration.