EUtopia? Diversity in a Changing Europe: Creative youth work lab for rethinking diversity solutions

• Have you ever wondered what diversity actually means?
• Do you work with people who question if diversity has gone too far in Europe?
• Living in times when Europe is undergoing major developments, do you ever wonder how to help young people make sense of it all?
• Do you think it is time to reconsider the way we (you) work with young people nowadays?
• Are you curious about the principles and practices of slow youth work in a world that is changing rapidly?
• Would you like to go on an eight-month creative journey with a dynamic community of learners?

EUtopia? Diversity in a Changing Europe is a creative, analytical and critical learning experiment which will bring new life to old concepts. It is for the very experienced among us, who sometimes feel tired of thinking, and the very fresh ones, who sometimes feel lost and don't know where to even begin. If you are ready to dive deep in the meaning of diversity and use what you find to reshape the practices of youth work – then EUtopia is for you!

The learning process lasts for eight months. It will result in improved practices for supporting young people in changing Europe, and it will produce tools and approaches that will be shared in an online library for youth workers. It is comprised of four elements:

1st part: Home Lab for Introduction – online learning process consisting of 24 hours of individual work from March to May

2nd part: Lab for Critical Analysis – challenging and exploring concepts in Latvia, from 6th to 12th of May 2019

3rd part: Piloting Lab for Creativity and Experimentation – testing it all through local activities implemented by participants in their local communities

4th part: Designing Lab – creating new tools and approaches in Montenegro, from 8th to 13th of October 2019

The call is open to all youth field professionals. The selected participants are requested to take part in all parts of the Lab.

Aim and objectives:

The aim of the lab is to provide youth field professionals with an opportunity 1) to explore the complex and diverse realities of young people in a changing Europe and 2) to prepare to better respond to those realities by applying values-based perspective of diversity and reshaping their youth work practices.

The objectives of the lab are:

• to create a community of learners ready to engage in a challenging, self-reflective, long term, dynamic learning process;
• to identify the relevant socio-political and cultural conditions that influence the lives of young people on local and European level;
• to explore the contexts in which young people grow up today, develop sensitivity to identity and culture-related issues that young people are confronted with, and critically evaluate the current youth work responses to them;
• to understand reasoning and motivation behind young people’s views and attitudes, discover how opinions are formed, and practice critical thinking;
• to challenge/ radicalize the concept of diversity, exploring it from a values-based, rather than from a normative policy perspective;
• to develop the most relevant competences for reconsidering and reshaping youth work practices that fit the current challenges;
• to develop participants’ own intercultural competence, as defined by the ETS Competence Model for Trainers and the ETS Competence Model for Youth Workers to Work Internationally;
• to incorporate principles of slow youth work in diversity related practices;
• to discover opportunities to incorporate values- based approach to diversity within Erasmus+ activities and to support international cooperation among participants.

The activity is organized in cooperation with Jaunatnes starptautisko programmu aģentūra (the Latvian National Agency for the Erasmus+ Programme in the field of youth) and SALTO South East Europe and Inclusion and Diversity Resource Centres.