Young Activists for Peace

«Young activists for Peace» is the project for people taking care about the future of the World organized in Germany by ICJA with support of Erasmus+.

Since 2015 ICJA run the project split up into two phases. They are: youth exchange and training for youth leaders. Moreover the Project name is changing from year to year based on selected topic. 

This year the project was named «Young Activist for Peace and «A World We Want» on account of growing discrimination, hate speech and intolerance against migrants and refugees in many EU countries. The aim of this project was to strengthen the foundations for peaceful communities by enabling the dialogue between young people about the future of our planet as well as fostering their active citizenship and democratic values. The first part of the project «Young Activist for Peace and «A World We Want» took place between 08.07.-19.07. in the Peace center Sievershausen near Hannover. 30 young people from five countries (Germany, Russia, Georgia, Greece and Turkey) met at the Youth Exchange to share their thoughts and experiences on the topic «How should the peaceful World look like?», to find solutions to overcome barriers in integration of refugees as well as break the social stereotypes and  prejudice in connection with it.

Lets have a look how it was.

As a first step was important to build a strong team. That’s why the first day all the participants spent time by range of team building activities. Thanks to it they were able to know each other better and find the common life goals and interests.  

Next two days of Youth Exchange the group got a training on the basis of a concept «Young people as Agents of Peace». The training enabled to get basic skills for personal interaction with violence and conflicts. That helped to recognize answers the questions: What is the   adaptation or isolation strategy during the conflicts? What are the reasons for any of these strategies? What strategy is better to use to run peace dialogue that helps to solve the conflict?

One of the important topic of this exchange were detailed seminar and workshop about Sustainable Development Goals SDGs. The interactive presentation of 17 SDGs showed where new challenges for the society development in the future are. During the workshop young activists paid attention to the questions and found the answers for them: How can we succeed the life and work together with people from different social and cultural background? How can we find democratically and constructive decisions in any conflict? By the way, the workshop gave an overview of urgent problems the society face in current times like wasting ecological resources, climate change, unequal distribution of power and wealth and the permanent endangering of peace and stability. New knowledges participants implemented on practice during the excursion in Hannover run by organization JANUN.

As a final step of the youth exchange participants organized several days workshops together with refugees living in a camp in neighboring town. It was a great pleasure for all to spend time together, get to know new cultures, discuss daily problems and finally get new friends from different parts of the world.

Coming to the end, the great job was done by organizations as well as by participants and all involved people. Working and deciding together was a good practice for democratic decision-making and peaceful conflict resolution. This fostered participants to have a better understanding of conflicts between religions and world views. This experience provided ideas on how to become active and how to participate in the construction of peaceful and pluralist societies in the EU and worldwide.

P.S.: «Viele kleine Leute in vielen kleinen Orten, die viele kleine Dinge tun, können das Gesicht der Welt verändern.» Mandika.