MIJARC Europe

The first international activity of 2018 is approaching fast and the call for participants has been lanched. So, do YOU want to join our call for peace and bring your contribution to have peace for all? Don’t worry, it is not very complicated. Actually, it will be quite entertaining, funny and natural, because peace begins with each and every one of us and our attitudes.

“A call for peace for all” is planned to take place in Ribamar, Portugal, between the 1st (arrival day) and 5th of July 2018. Three participants interested in the topic of peace from each member movement* are invited to join the youth peace camp. In call below you will find some basic information concerning the organisation of this activity. Also you will find attached one promotion info graphic, which you can use to spread the word in your movements about the Youth Peace Camp.

Download the call: Call for participants _ Youth Peace Camp_A call for peace for all

Download the registration form: Registration form Youth Peace Camp_ A call for peace for all

Please, read this documents carefully, and, do not hesitate to contact us in case you need
any clarification or further information:
E-mail: office-europe@mijarc.info
Phone: 0032 (0) 485 36 84 74

The DEADLINE to apply is: 20th of May

*Not a member of any of the organizations in our network? Then send us an email and we will find a solution.

Together with its member movement, FYCA, which was the host of the activity, MIJARC Europe implemented its summer camp:

Youth Paving the Way to Solidarity

The summer camp took place in Yereven – Armenia, between 23rd and 29th August 2017. It gathered a wonderful group of 40 young people, from seven different countries (Austria, Armenia, Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Germany and Romania) all of them with open minds and fresh ideas who shared stories of their lives and their ideas about living in inclusive societies. The Summer Camp was organized as a result of MIJARC Europe’s concern towards helping rural young people develop a counternarrative discourse to extremism by promoting tolerance, solidarity and non-discrimination through inter-cultural dialogue. By the means of this Summer Camp, we wanted to offer the opportunity of a youth exchange in a multicultural environment where rural youth and young refugees/immigrants could share the realities of each country in order to combat stereotypes and prejudice on both sides.

The Summer Camp pursued the following objectives:

Encouraging inter-cultural dialogue, networking and mobility of young people;
Helping rural young people develop critical thinking in a multicultural environment;
Increasing the involvement of young people in the social life in local communities and develop projects, based on an intercultural approach;
Debating the possible causes of the rise of extremism in youth, its potential consequences and find a common position on the topic;
Empowering young people to take active role in security matters, underlying the importance of including young people in preventing and deterring potential local threats;
Reducing the trauma of the youth migrants/refugees and avoid isolation in the host communities, by fostering an environment where young migrants and refugees can participate and exchange opinions alongside with rural youth;
Raising awareness on and understanding for the difficulty of displaced populations in the host community by creating and performing a small theatre play.

Through the method “See, Judge and Act” the participants engaged in activities based on non-formal and informal learning such as working groups, field visits, pedagogical games, icebreakers and energizers, storytelling, debate/discussions on the topics of the activity, learn how to create a theatre play, thematic evenings, presentations by each country, plenary sessions, interaction with the host community and preparation of dissemination and exploitation of the results of the Summer Camp.

We started on the first day with some name games and icebreakers to get the participants closer together. The next day we initiated pedagogical games, icebreakers and energizers and storytelling to get on the topics of radicalization, extremisms and solidarity. Here it was possible for the participants to discuss the topics in a very deep way and to find solutions how to deal with radicalization, extremisms, xenophobia and how to create solidarity. In the late afternoon, we visited Aleppo NGO. Their mission is to protect, support and empower Syrian citizens sheltered in Armenia, develop and implement lasting projects to contribute to their settlement and integration processes. It was a great example for vivid solidarity. The next day we visited the Genocide museum of Yerevan, to learn more about the Armenian history and in the afternoon, we went to Lake Sevan, to get an impression from the beautiful Armenian countryside. The next day, they participants created a theatre play how to handle radicalization, extremisms and xenophobia and the following day it was presented in city of Yerevan to the Armenian people to bring the message from solidarity to the people.

You can watch some parts of the theatre play here: Link 1, Link 2, Link 3.

The participants recorded a video message too. See what they had to say here.

The study visit was the first activity of the work plan and its main results was the creation of a group of 9 multipliers from 9 different countries who acquired the competencies to plan, implement and evaluate quality learning events for young people from rural areas on the topic of preventing radicalisation leading to violent extremism.

The visit took place between 8^th and 11^th May and it included no less than 7 meetings with different institutions and experts in the field of extremism and radicalization. On the first day the participants had a Skype meeting with Mr. Menno Ettema- the European coordinator of the No Hate Speech Movement, which resulted in a better understanding of the campaign and how to become active nationally and locally, what tools CoE proposes for raising awareness online about hate speech, the importance of source criticism, and the protection of human rights online. The evening session gave the floor to the participants, as they presented the findings of their small scale research, highlighting what extremism means in their own local realities and also if they or their organization had any experience working with the topic before.

The second day included three visits: a meeting with the European Network Against Racism (ENAR), a meeting with MEP Mr. Ivan Jakovcic from Croatia and a meeting with the European Youth Forum (YFJ). At the end of the day, the participants were invited to share their thoughts and evaluate the day. They reported feeling a high distance between the local levels and the EU level, not feeling very connected to the work at European level, they discovered that some politicians had no idea about rural youth and the overall impression was that nobody seems to fight the causes of extremism but only the consequences.

The third day took the participants to a meeting with the City Council of Molenbeek, a visit to the Belgian Federal Public Service Home Affairs General Directorate Security & Prevention who implemented the Bounce project and a meeting with the Radicalization Awareness Network (RAN). The wrap-up session for the day was arranged as an open discussion.

The last day of the study visit was the day of summarizing and setting next steps for moving forward. The participants learned how to facilitate in a multicultural group and then were split in groups to prepare the seminar: one group worked on the content and planning of the international seminar while the other group focused on tools and learning outcomes for future trainings and local work. The last session focused on analysing the learning objectives and the extent to which they had been achieved and on evaluating the study visit as a whole.

The idea of a study visit was well received by our member movements who actually felt that this is the kind of activity that makes it worth being part of a network. They appreciated the opportunity to visit European organisations and institutions as well as local authorities in Brussels, because it was something that they could not have planned on their own. The visit succeeded in giving participants valuable access points in European organisations and international NGOs and in presenting research and examples for combating radical propaganda and forms of hatred based on intolerance online and offline. Finally, three of the participants joined the team who prepared the next phase of the workplan and all of them took back the experience and the knowledge in their local movements.

The study visit was part of our annual work plan “Radically against extremism” which is supported by the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe. A unique foundation supporting activities developed with, for & by young people. The plan is also co-financed by Renovabis.

In 2017 MIJARC Europe is running an annual Work Plan on the topics of radicalisation and extremism. The main aim of the work plan is to reach out to young women and men living in rural areas in Europe and support them in resisting and countering radicalisation and violent extremism.

This annual work plan will include a series of three activities which are interconnected and build on each other:

1. “Visiting at the speed of radicalisation” – a study visit in Brussels for a group of 12 young people. The aim of the visit is to create a group of multipliers that will be the Think Tank preparing and facilitating the next activity, the seminar. The idea is for the participants to have meetings with representatives of European institutions involved in the prevention of and fight against radicalisation of young people, encounters with experts on the topic of social inclusion and extremism and with European and international NGOs who run projects in the field. This activity will set the context for having a unified and prepared team able to run a quality seminar but it will also contribute to building the capacity of our member movements. It will give participants the chance to develop competencies that reduce their vulnerability to extremist views and at the same time it will motivate them to invest their energy in addressing these issues in their organisations and communities.

2. “Open Minds, Open Doors” – an international seminar prepared and facilitated by the people who attended the study visit which will be built on the knowledge and skills acquired during the first phase. The seminar will be centered on the issue of vulnerability of rural young people to radicalisation, focusing on sharing the realities of each country, on the exchange of opinions and on concrete solutions at local level. The seminar will use the traditional MIJARC Europe methodology of “See-Judge-Act” looking first at the contextual, personal and ideological factors that increase the vulnerability to radicalization of young people living in rural areas, then analyzing which of these factors have the greatest influence and finally deciding what measures to take and what tools to use in order to increase their resilience. The seminar serves to enable the critical thinking of participants and the reinforcement of our shared values. It helps participants develop competencies that reduce their vulnerability and it motivates them to take all these to the next level to inform and inspire others.

3. “Think European, share locally” – local round tables gathering rural NGOs, representatives of local public authorities and young people in order to present the results of the international activities and use the position paper as a starting point in analysing and re-discussing the local strategy on preventing radicalisation, fighting extremist attitudes and building resilience.

Our annual work plan in 2017 is implemented with the financial support of the Council of Europe through the European Youth Foundation.