Italy is a winner in promoting CHARM these days. Two flash mobs offered some awareness in the center of Florence and Livorno in June. See the video below. The flash mobs were part of the in-country events, planned within the YAR project, to promote the CHARM Factor publication and the project results.

Along with that a press conference was organized by our Italian partner – Accadmia Europe di Firenze on 13 July. The meeting was organized in cooperation with Massa Marittima Municipality. See more info here: Comune di Massa Marittima

Press conference was organized in Budapest also by our Hungarian partners – Hungarian Association for Community Development. It took place on 30 June in the Hungarian Institute for Culture with the aim to promote the results of the Youth against Racism project.  The event in Hungary was accompanied by one hour discussion on the Civil Radio – Budapest (98 FM), with project leaders and social professionals. The audio files are available here (Hungarian):

/1st part / 2nd part /

Our Hungarian partners promoted the Youth against Racism project through the regular civic magazine Parola, big part of which was dedicated to the project. The magazine is available for download from the CHARMload section in our website (Hungarian).

A press conference was organized in Bulgaria also on July 13^th. It gathered journalists and participants, involved in the project. During the meeting the results of the project were presented and discussed and the project publication – The CHARM Factor – was promoted.

The publication in Bulgaria was also made public through an interview for the regional Blagoevgrad radio. Here the radio show (Bulgarian): Blagoevgrad Radio

да намерите на уебсайта: http://charmingyouth.eu/bg.

Представянето на публикацията ще се случи на 13.07.2011 година от 16:00 часа в

офиса на Фондация С.Е.Г.А. на ул. „Г.С.Раковски“ 96, ет.2 в София.

Очакваме ви!

Представянето се организира в рамките на проекта „Младежи срещу расизма“

С финансовата подкрепа на програма „Основни права и гражданство“ на ЕС и Европейската младежка фондация.

Charming, uh?

The mainstreaming of anti-racism through youth organizational policies is a good start, but the existence of the policy itself (in the form of declaration, document, code of conduct, etc.) is not always enough of a guarantee that an organization is more inclusive. Yet, there are various ways to support anti-racism without leaving the profile of your own organization.

These are some of the main conclusions of the International Workshop “Mainstreaming anti-racist awareness in youth work” that took part in Hungary. The encounter took place between 16^th and 19^th of March 2011 and was hosted by the YAR partner Hungarian Association for Community Development. The workshop gathered together 36 people – representatives of the involved youth organizations and the project partners of the project “Youth against Racism”. The aim of the workshop was to present the best organizational policies, to share experience on their impact and to explore other ways of mainstreaming anti-racism in youth work.

Working hard

The sharing between the participants gave a general overview of how the project went in the six different European countries involved and gave space to discuss differences and similarities. The participants came to the point that the situation in the different countries varies in terms of perceptions and thematic of racism-related issues in the youth sphere. But one thing is similar – there is no country where this problem does not exist. Furthermore, in all the countries education (training) and networking turned out to be crucially important for mainstreaming anti-racism. Essentially, this led to the conclusion that the created networks (regionally, nationally and internationally) within the YAR project have a great potential and ways of keeping them alive (or even strengthen and expand them) should be thought.

For more information on the workshop, please check the full report in the CharmLoad section.

The international workshop “Mainstreaming anti-racism in all spheres of youth work” will gather around 30 people – representatives of the involved youth organizations and the project partners of the project “Youth against Racism”. The aim of the workshop is to present the best organizational policies, to share experience on their impact and to explore other ways of mainstreaming anti-racism in youth work.

The workshop is organized within the framework of the Youth againsted Racism project and is hosted by the project partner from Hungary – Hungarian Association for Community Development.

Specific objectives of the workshop:

• To provide space for sharing good practices and experience in designing youth anti-racist organizational policies in Europe;
• To present the experience of different organizations in involving young people into anti-racism;
• To explore other opportunities for mainstreaming anti-racist awareness in the youth work in Europe;
• To allow networking among various youth organizations and institutions, mainstreaming anti-racism in their work.

See summary of the preliminary agenda on the CHARMload section.

Since the main goal of the YAR project is to provide an anti-discrimination policy at the strategy level, the Hungarian Association for Community Development (the YAR project partner in Hungary) decided to target the leaders of organizations. The syllabus of ‘Youth leader training’ contained some leader self-knowledge, basic issues of group-dynamics, practical and theoretical learning on cooperation, competition and conflict management among groups and individuals, socio-psychology of minorities and discrimination and overview of leader-styles.

The backbone of the training was a group of well-known practices used in anti-discrimination education/training and sensitizing such as ice-breakers, empathy practices, film-analysis, etc. And the charming education methods seemed to work.

“The trainings seemed to be a very effective and deep way to make changes in the youngsters thinking according to the project’s message”, HACD team members say. “This year we implemented some other large-scale programs connected with similar topics (Nation-wide summer university about tolerance and solidarity, Citizens Participation Week linked with anti-discrimination themes), and these programs were very successful, but the trainings were much more powerful in making positive and overall changes in the target group’s thinking.”

HACD is currently working with the trainees and other youth organization in Hungary on a draft declaration against racism and exclusion in youth work. Every organisation which identifies itself as an open and tolerant team with anti-rassist principles is welcome to join the process. Check it out here.