Youth workers against extremism and xenophobia

The European Union is not only a political Union but also it is a cradle of various universal human values. Among them are Tolerance, Understanding and Multiculturalism, in other words, the values that unite different and multicultural European societies. Meanwhile, recent years Europe faced an enormous flow of refugees from Southern and Eastern borders. While several countries mobilized resources to support and welcome people, who lost everything but hope in their motherlands, EU residents witness also calls for extremist actions by marginalized political powers. In European nowadays reality we see the polarization of the societies. As a result of active right-wing politicians' propaganda and the Refugee crisis in European countries, more and more people become open for ideas of Extremism and Xenophobia as a fast solution to all problems. Marginalized political powers use refugees, migrants, and Muslims as the main target to blame for all economic and security difficulties that Europeans have to face today. Those separations of "us" and "others" also lead to the seclusion of refugees, migrants as well as religious and ethnic minorities, who feel not welcomed by European societies. And this also provokes them to seclusion instead of integration. This challenging tendency can lead to the confrontation between different societies and can have unpredicted and heavy causalities in future. Taking into account the extremist movements in Europe, rising xenophobia and Islamophobia among European youth, we consider it highly important to gather active young people, youth workers, and activists to discuss questions of multicultural society, inter-religious and intercultural dialogue as well as to think about possible solutions leading to tolerance, integration, and multiculturalism. The training course "Youth workers against extremism and xenophobia" will take place in Austria and will involve youth workers from 6 Programme Countries. During the Training course, we will explore the issues of extremism, intolerance and find solutions to act as youth worker against extremism and xenophobia. The Training Course will support young people and active youth workers to learn about the ways of living together, accepting differences and fighting together against extremism and xenophobia in nowadays reality. Our aim. With this Training course, we aim to empower youth workers and youth leaders with skills, knowledge, and attitudes to develop a capacity for fighting extremism and xenophobia. Our objectives are the following: - To re-explore the key concepts, such as extremism and xenophobia and their transformation in European reality - To analyze what are the main reasons for the rise of Extremism and Islamaphobia in different European countries - To discover the right attitudes towards an intercultural society - To promote active citizenship, tolerance and non-formal education - To analyze the European values and how they can be used in contrasting those phenomena. - To develop new projects fighting extremism and xenophobia On a long lasting perspective, as a result of the implementation of a greater number of projects fighting extremism and xenophobia, we will see the wider respect to European values; respect for rights of persons belonging to minorities, their freedom, and human dignity. The project does its contribution to reaching this objective, with this fulfilling one of the General objectives of the Erasmus+ Programme; the promotion of European values in accordance with Article 2 of the Treaty. The participants should be at least 18 years old.