4 – 12 April, 2017
Novi Sad, Serbia

The Association EPEKA, Soc. Ent., is a partner in the project “Youth sport work increases inclusion and acceptance of diversity in Europe” coordinated by Aktivni mladi u srečnoj Evropi, Pančevo.

In Europe there are serious issues with intercultural dialogue and acceptance of diversity due to wars’ and economic migrations towards the EU. In our work for intercultural acceptance we’ve noticed how quite some values disappear from the mind-set of our beneficiaries when there is “important” sport competition event and when they take sides in opposite fan groups that show strong animosity towards each other. Then we can see certain negative behavior shown by the same beneficiaries that are usually positive and accepting different individuals around them in regular youth work activities. Until youth work is separated from sport, we will not be able to reach as good results as possible for intercultural acceptance in our communities. We need to practice more the healthy competition and teamwork in sports among our beneficiaries. This project responds to those needs and aims to encourage our youth workers to develop more youth sport work projects that will explore and extract all the possible positive aspects of sports for developing consistent positive intercultural acceptance among our beneficiaries.

The core activity of the project is – 8 days long partnership-building activity (PBA). It will be organised in the youth hostel in Novi Sad, Serbia from 4th till 12th April 2017. The project will gather 35 participants, trainers and staff from 19 organisations and 15 countries (RS, AL, BA, ME, XK, CY, ES, GR, HR, IT, MK, PT, RO, SI, TR). There will be at least 18 out of 35 people with fewer opportunities. The goals of this PBA are to develop the capacity of youth workers and partners in Erasmus+ KA2 Western Balkans Youth Window and Sport strands and to establish partnerships for youth sport work projects tackling current issues of discrimination, marginalization and exclusion in Europe and diversity in general. We expect from participants to be able to represent their sending organisations and enter into new partnerships and new project proposals during this PBA. Through increased quantity & quality projects, we expect the increased competencies and readiness of young people in communities for taking active stand in fighting discrimination and intolerance and promoting respect of diversity and intercultural acceptance.

Coordinator: Aktivni mladi u srečnoj Evropi, Pančevo

Project partners:

  • AMUSE (Serbia),
  • BBA (Albania),
  • NGO YP (Bosnia and Hercegovina),
  • SOS Youth (Montenegro),
  • GAIA (Kosovo),
  • HFC (Cyprus),
  • Rooftop Theatre (Cyprus),
  • UCAM (Spain),
  • EILD (Greece),
  • Capoeira Amazonas (Croatia),
  • Realization (Croatia),
  • City Torino (Italy),
  • CID, FYR (Macedonia),
  • AJITER (Portugal),
  • PRSD (Portugal),
  • SOLOMON (Romania),
  • the Association EPEKA, Soc. Ent. (Slovenia),
  • Bodrum Dance Club (Turkey),
  • IKOS (Turkey)

For more information and if you wish to join the project please send an e-mail with a motivation letter and your CV to epeka@epeka.si.

The coordinator of the partner organisation: Štefan Simončič, president of the Association EPEKA, Soc. Ent., stefan@epeka.si.

This project is financed by the European Commission. The content of this announcement only expresses the opinions of the author. The National agency and the European Commission are in no way responsible for any use of the information the announcement includes.

The youth program ofthe Association EPEKA, Soc. Ent., is supported by the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport — Office of the Republic of Slovenia for Youth.

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