Great Silk Way International Youth Union

“Great Silk Way” International Youth Union (GSW IYU) was established by the initiative of the National Youth Council of Azerbaijan and by the support of other leading national youth platform organizations located in 25 countries through which the historical Silk Way route passes from China to Portugal. The purpose of the organization is to promote the intercultural dialogue between young people living in European as well as in Mediterranean, Asian and Central Asian countries. The GSW IYU is working on breaking the barriers which impede social cohesion and learning from other cultures and values. There are a lot of cultures in Europe and this factor means that there are a lot opportunities to learn from each other, we should promote the mutual understanding through the process of intercultural learning. GSW IYU is not only working with young people from European countries, however, it works with other youth organizations from other countries of Asia and Mediterranean in order to spread the values like mutual respect, intercultural learning, avoiding racism and xenophobia.

Aim of the Union is to coordinate the activities of its members, also to represent and protect their common interests, to improve tolerance and mutual understanding among young people in order to contribute to the creation and development of intercivilizations and intercultural dialogue, and to support activities of young people in this field.

The Union carries out the following objectives in order to achieve its aims:

• builds relations with various organizations to protect the interests of its members;
• organizes various international training courses and seminars, round-table meetings, exhibitions, conferences, charity marathons, forums and other mass-cultural events;
• Cooperates with international and regional organizations and is represented in such organizations;
• Independently disseminates information about its aims and activities.

GSW organizes the following project activities:

- Organization of the annual youth festivals with participation of our member organizations. Young musicians, singers, painters, dancers are gathering in one place in order to represent their cultures.

- We are organizing trainings, seminars and international meetings to discuss the future priority issues with young people representing our member organizations.

- International Summer camps with multicultural representativeness.

- Online activities and activities in the social network.

- Different projects initiated by our young volunteers in the different field of intercultural learning.
- Youth exchanges with participation of young people from the different countries (European and non-European);
- networking meetings with other international or national youth organizations;
The target group of the Union is young people aged 18-29. We are working with young people having different cultural or ethnic backgrounds, young people with fewer opportunities and young people from the rural areas.