GONG and other partner organizations in the GEAR project – including Nansen Dialogue Centre from Osijek, CIVES from Spain, Mirovni inštitut from Slovenia, GSI Italia from Italy and Nansen Dialogue Centre Skopje from Macedonia – held a series of youth trainings , exchanges and workshops in Jezerčica and Osijek.
During May, the partner organizations in the GEAR project held educational and training activities for teachers and youth in Jezerčica and in Osijek, Croatia.
Training for youth ambassadors of solidarity was held in Jezerčica from May 11 to May 13, The training consisted of a variety of activities of non-formal and experiential learning, designed to enhance the participants’ communication skills, critical thinking, capacity for intercultural dialogue and understanding, as well as other foundations for planning and implementing solidarity actions in local communities. The training brought together and engaged youth aged 16-23 from Croatia, Italy and Spain, including a group of students from the Economic and Tourism School Daruvar, which is also a GEAR project partner.
The next youth training was held in Osijek on May 18 and was attended by a group of youth from Croatia, Macedonia and Slovenia. This training emphasized building competencies for cooperation and communication in collaborative problem solving.
Some of the training participants also took part in workshops which set before the youth participants more specific assignments that referred to the skills they had gained through the trainings.
The workshop held in the Economic and Tourism School Daruvar on May 14 emphasized intercultural communication, starting communication processes and exchanging information regarding common goals despite limitations in information exchange. Likewise, the workshop held in Dalj on May 19 – one day after the completion of the training in Osijek – brought together an extended group of youth from various national contexts, who had joined forces in an assignment of building an imaginary political community from the ground up, including the main elements of its economy and culture, its political system and its mechanisms for securing the rights and liberties of its denizens. This exercise served to encourage thinking about identities and needs of various groups of people in a political community, as well as about the various social foundations of understanding and cooperation between them.
The GEAR project is co-fundeed by EU Erasmus+ program. More information about the project and the activities that will be carried out as part of it can be found here.