TC Religion as a cross-cutting issue in youth work within EuroMed context

Aims & objectives

1. To promote intercultural dialogue through deeper understanding of the inherent cross-cutting religious dimension and providing tools to better tackle this critical issue in youth work within EuroMed context.
2. To raise awareness about different beliefs & their impact on EuroMed work.
3. To provide youth workers with pedagogical tools needed to approach EuroMed religious dimension.
4. To make participants confident & motivated to tackle this dimension within their work.

Target group & international/intercultural composition of the group & team

Participants from Belgium, Bulgaria, Egypt, Latvia, Tunisia, Sweden, Germany, Morocco, and Jordan.

Trainers from Belgium, Larvia and Jordan.

Training methods used & main activities

Conscious choice of the location of the training and full use of it (connection to the multi-religious local community, visiting of important religious sites, inviting local resourceful persons & challenging participants by putting them in a new environment ('Muslims in a pilgrims-house or Christians in a mosque)) / Careful selection of participants (balance between experiences, religions, regions,...) / Establishment of dialogue-'rules' to stimulate respectful and in-depth dialogue / Combating geopolitical barriers by using ICT (skype-meeting with a Jewish in Israel) / Offering new perspectives by connecting personal stories with the content / Bringing in local and Euromed stakeholders (RIIFS , ALF, ...) / ...

Outcomes of the activity

- Higher awareness about religions/ believes as cross-sutting issue in EuroMed youth work, therefore, deeper and more conscious IC dialogue among participants.
- Enforced Euro-Arab Network
- Local Jordanian NGOs interested in EuroMed programme
- Mainstreaming ALF-Jordan network with EuroMed initiatives

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBISbt1vQesj6tGNruaRF2zeyj8zFa6LF
http://www.medregion.mepi.state.gov/interfaith-understanding.html

Your tasks and responsibilities within the team

The creation of the concept of the training, preperation, implementation (as one of 3 trainers) and evaluation/follow-up activities. As this training was a new concept, most of the methods used for it we created ourselves.

I worked on this training for 8 days as a full time trainer.