From the 5th to 12th of October, 3 representatives of CET Platform Macedonia participated in the seminar “United for Diversity and Inclusion” that took place in Thessaloniki, Greece, and was hosted by United Societies of Balkans, an NGO that works in the field of youth mobility, participation, and facilitation of youth awareness about social issues.
On this seminar, the participants worked on the topics of diversity and inclusion through exploring the current situation in each of their countries and identifying what aspects of their local communities require action to foster the youth participation and inclusion. With the exceptional facilitation and guidance of the trainers, we learned more about the themes of diversity, inclusion and European values, as well as some strategies and mechanisms for social inclusion and work with young people with fewer opportunities.
The seminar’s programme along with the leisure activities, especially the karaoke nights, gave us an opportunity both to collaborate on tasks together and to have fun together, which resulted in a deeply felt experience and many shared moments. Even though we were quite a culturally diverse group, through the activities we managed to find more similarities among us than we were aware of, whereas through the intercultural nights we learned more about specific things of different cultures. Most importantly, it doesn’t all stop here.
The group has formed a ‘United in Diversity Network’ which will operate in all the participating countries, and the results of its activities and research will be presented and discussed on the following training course in February, where we’ll work on tools and useful practices for working with culturally diverse groups in order to make positive impact in the fields of youth participation and social inclusion.
If this sounds as something you wish you were part of, the ‘United in Diversity Network’ will be open for new members who wish to work and contribute on topics of diversity, inclusion, and youth participation, so more details will follow.
