On the 15th of November, the week-long youth exchange that brought 40 young adults from four different European countries to Forlì was concluded. The exchange was made possible thanks to the European Union’s initiative, “Erasmus+”; a programme designed to support education, training, youth and sport in Europe. Specifically, the programme aims to reduce youth unemployment, promote adult learning and participation at the European level, as well as encourage cooperation and mobility with the EU’s partner countries.
In this case, Erasmus+ helped finance the project “NOVI- European youth towards a nonviolent future”, which was organised by the Centro Pace in Forlì and which saw the participation of various youth organisations from Italy, Spain, Slovenia, Slovakia and Croatia. The project was developed and implemented with the main aim of providing youngsters with basic skills in the field of peacebuilding, non-violence and peaceful conflict resolution. Indirectly the project aimed to inspire a sense of active citizenship and to spark an interest in contemporary socio-political issues as well as to encourage the participants to adopt a critical approach when facing these issues.
How was all of this accomplished? The participants were guided through a week of informal learning supported by a full and varied schedule. Every morning at 9:30 the participants met at Centro Pace for a day full of activities. These included get-to-know-each other games meant to consolidate the group, videos showing examples of successful non-violent protests, creative tasks, discussions and group work; everything carried out with an underlying focus on the sharing of ideas and experiences related to the topic.
The first four days represented a build-up to the main activity; i.e. the simulation which took place on the fifth day of the exchange. The context of the simulation was the invented and staged site of an anti-immigrant protest, for which the participants were all divided into different social groups and given independent roles within them. Following a couple of hours of preparation in which the participants had to identify with roles that sometimes proved to be diametrically opposed with respect to their real-life viewpoints, the simulation could take place. After completion, the participants reported being positively surprised by the degree to which the activity helped them understand different opinions and ideas. Moreover, a stunning 100% of the participants partly or fully agreed that the activity contributed in raising their sense of initiative and self-confidence.
However, even though the NOVI project allowed the participants to share a valuable learning experience related to the study of non-violent methods of conflict resolution, maybe of equal importance was the opportunity of intercultural exchange and idea-sharing that the project offered; especially given the general political climate characterising today’s Europe. In fact, how better to combat the trends of closure, euro-scepticism and xenophobia that are currently engulfing the continent, than by challenging the borders and the cultural differences that are separating us and getting together as one?
This is why NOVI, in addition to formative activities, gave special importance to those important moments of shared free-time, enouraged the participants to socialise accorss national groups and even provided for an intercultural dinner during which each national group was given the possibility to cook traditional food and share it with the rest. The end result was a united international group of 40 youngsters that at the end of each day decided to remain at the centre, even after formal activities had ended, in order to share their free-time by singing, playing music and simply staying together as one.
Fride Lia Stensland
