"With our eight days long youth exchange young people were strengthened in their civil society involvement. Action strategies and ""Good Practices"" against exclusion and racism have been especially exchanged and developed. During the seminar week from 27.12.2014 - 03.01.2015 the participants have presented together methods and ideas of ""good practice"" from the work in their organizations but also developed new ideas for their work out of that. There were overall 30 young people from six different countries who took part in this youth exchange. The participants come from different regions of the EU. In this way it?s also ensured that a variety of different perspectives and social challenges in the work against racism and discrimination have been introduced by the participants in the discussions. All the participants are active in the partner organizations / youth associations of the project. During this youth exchange the young participants have become Peer-Educators by presenting their work in the organizations to the other young participants and by working with them on transferability of the ""good practice"". In this way they were ""active actors"" during the project, what in turn was empowering and contributed to the success of the exchange. The aim of the Youth Exchange ""Together against racism and exclusion"" to contribute to the strengthening of democratic culture in Europe and an active commitment against racism and discrimination, has reached its purpose."

<< Objectives >>We need confident young people who, in their own way, are committed to maintaining and promoting democracy and safeguarding and implementing human rights. We need young people who are sure of their future, who are active in society and who are committed to a vibrant democracy, who have fresh ideas for shaping our societies and who know how to articulate and implement them. By empowering young people to do this, we strengthen the active participation of young people and young adults in democratic processes and enable young people to have a direct influence on things that affect their lives. This not only helps young people, but has an impact on society as a whole. It also promotes democratic culture and peaceful coexistence and thus the protection of human rights. According to the revised European Charter on Young People's Participation in Local and Regional Life, participation in the democratic life of every community is more than the right to vote in free elections - although this is an important element. Participation and active citizenship also mean the right to have the means, spaces and opportunities and, where necessary, the support to participate in and influence actions and activities that contribute to building a fairer society. To achieve these aims, we need to educate young people about human rights and democratic civil society, structures, processes and ways of life. Knowing these principles and defending, protecting and promoting them empowers and encourages young people to get involved in their society and to bring their interests to bear.The emergence of the corona pandemic and the associated quarantine regulations in the individual states had a special impact on children and adolescents. We also wanted to take time to reflect on this and to evaluate whether we as youth group leaders have to react specially. Child and youth participation cannot be thought of without care work for children and young people whose participation in our society we want to promote. They are mutually dependent.<< Implementation >>During an eight-day youth exchange, we brought together young people and young adults from Europe with our partner organizations (Esplais Catalans, Kulturalis Kapcsolatokert Alapitvany, Young socialists of Georgia, Social Democratic Platform, Zveza drustev sokolske mladine, SSU Gävleborg, Tolerantiško Jaunimo Asociacija, Center for effective communication ABF Belarus) in our education center near Berlin, to deal intensively with the topic of youth participation. This involved a critical examination of social participation, emphasizing the opportunities of youth participation, but also understanding their obstacles and challenges in order to be able to meet them. It was also about opening up new target groups and formats and making your own youth education commitment more diversified and inclusive, both internally and externally, in order to address and involve marginalized young people who are not involved in politics.Our seminar concept followed the three-step process of (1) knowledge transfer / awareness raising, (2) exchange of experience / best practice and (3) empowerment / encouragement to act. In addition to numerous workshops, we also spent a day with excursions in Berlin.The participants were young people and young adults between 18 and 30 years of age. They were already active in the partner organizations of the project in the field of youth education. With their voluntary work they are committed to a vibrant democracy, social, youth-friendly participation as well as social justice and diversity-conscious societies.<< Results >>Our project offered the participants a space to learn from each other, to discuss current challenges and to develop ideas to carry out projects in local groups, organizations, societies, communities or internationally. Working together for a week also promoted the participants' intercultural skills, their creativity and enabled them to work towards active participation in their democratic societies.The youth exchange corresponded to the aims of Erasmus + JUGEND IN AKTION in that it contributed to the promotion of solidarity and tolerance and motivated and qualified for civil society engagement. It promoted intercultural dialogue and awareness of respect for one another. The participants also learned about the special responsibilities and opportunities of non-formal and informal learning and developed tools together to expand their possibilities of participation - which not at last also contributed to the personal and professional development of the participants.Among the partner organizations that are active at national level or / and have a leading function here, the youth exchange will among other things: stimulate debates about youth participation institutions / formats and the involvement of target groups (in the sense of inclusion and integration of marginalized young people), lead to the development of appropriate skills among youth group workers (e.g. as a result of qualification processes) and possibly stimulate corresponding youth projects.Due to the corona pandemic, we also especially looked into the connection between “care” work with children and adolescents and the social participation of them.

"The goal of our volunteer project ""Intercultural and political youth education"" is to empower the participating volunteers in designing and moderating educational processes in the framework of international education and exchange projects. The project may take one volunteer. The volunteer will be working for 12 months in international education work of our Youth Education Centre Kurt Löwenstein. S_he will be involved in the development, preparation, implementation and evaluation of international youth training events and working with the responsible education officer in this area. The international education seminars are held on various topics, such as anti-discrimination, gender equality, participation, constructive conflict management and much more. In these seminars mainly young people from Europe and the Middle East take part. These seminars deals with one main topic and usually last for 8 days and are facilitated by nternational team, which is facilitating the non-formal educational process. While working on the topic we are also using a medium, such as Video, newspaper or theater and produce a substantive product. the volunteer wil be enabled under the guidance of the responsible educational officer to design and moderate educational processes and will be involved in the planning, preparation, implementation and evaluation of international educational activities. In our seminares we mainly focus on the diverse methodological design of political and intercultural educational processes. This acquired knowledge and skills the volunteers could use after the EVS, either by becoming active in the international honorary team of our educational centre, but also with other fields of international youth work and then run him_herself educational processes in international youth seminars and exchanges."

"The eight-day long training course ""Queer Solidarity - we are all in this together!"" deals with the topic of solidarity. Right-wing populist expressions become louder and more susceptible to mankind. The social climate is hardening and positions that deny the legitimacy of sexual and sexual diversity become more visible and tolerated in public spheres. In order to counteract these developments and to protect human rights, we need young people to unify and act in solidarity with each other across borders. This also includes leaving the “borders” of our own reference groups and engaging for the needs and requests of others. We would like to encourage and empower young educators with our seminar to be sensitive towards any kind of discrimination and fight it together. Through the provision of knowledge, awareness of our own social positioning, the exchange of experience with other committed youth workers, as well as the capacity-building for civic action, we would like to enable young educators to base their pedagogical practice on the principles of solidarity and convince others to do the same. Only if we consider the fight against discrimination and devaluation of any person (group) as our mission, social structures can be changed and diversity be established as a self-evident part of society. 50 young educators, aged between 20 and 35, from Great Britain, Spain, Germany, Georgia, Sweden, Palestine, Israel, Ireland, Slovenia and Austria will take part in the seminar. The participants are all active in our partner organizations. In this way, we also ensure their preparation and follow-up as well as the passing-on of newly acquired knowledge to the partner organizations."

"The goal of our volunteer project ""Intercultural and political youth education"" is to empower the participating volunteers in designing and moderating educational processes in the framework of international education and exchange projects. The project may take one volunteer. The volunteer will be working for 12 months in international education work of our Youth Education Centre Kurt Löwenstein. S_he will be involved in the development, preparation, implementation and evaluation of international youth training events and working with the responsible education officer in this area. The international education seminars are held on various topics, such as anti-discrimination, gender equality, participation, constructive conflict management and much more. In these seminars mainly young people from Europe and the Middle East take part. These seminars deals with one main topic and usually last for 8 days and are facilitated by nternational team, which is facilitating the non-formal educational process. While working on the topic we are also using a medium, such as Video, newspaper or theater and produce a substantive product. the volunteer wil be enabled under the guidance of the responsible educational officer to design and moderate educational processes and will be involved in the planning, preparation, implementation and evaluation of international educational activities. In our seminares we mainly focus on the diverse methodological design of political and intercultural educational processes. This acquired knowledge and skills the volunteers could use after the EVS, either by becoming active in the international honorary team of our educational centre, but also with other fields of international youth work and then run him_herself educational processes in international youth seminars and exchanges."