Programme: Erasmus+
Key Action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices
Action Type: Capacity Building for youth in neighbouring and enlargement countries
Project Identifier: 589971-EPP-1-2017-1-RS-EPPKA2-CBY-WB
Project Title: “Battling homophobia and bullying among youth”
Topics: Combat violence and tackle racism, discrimination and intolerance in sport
Results Platform Project Card: https://erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/projects/search/details/589971-EPP-1-2017-1-RS-EPPKA2-CBY-WB
Coordinating organisation and country: Regionalni info centar, RS
Participating Countries: RS, BA, HR, DE
Funded by: Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA)
Project duration: 01/09/2017 – 30/01/2019
Summary:
LGBT youth suffers homophobia, violence and lack of solidarity from their peers nor their teachers during their schooling period. Attempts of LGBT and Human rights organisation in Serbia to tackle this problem wasn’t fruitful, because for any activities in schools one needs special permission form the Ministry of Education, that wasn’t willing to cooperate on these issues. Similar situation regarding homophobia, bullying and violence in schools is present in Bosnia and Herzegovina and partially in Croatia, and with this project we exchanged experiences and knowledge, and found alternative ways in solving these issues, especially in cooperation with our partners from Germany. Although mechanism for protection of individuals against discrimination exist (on different levels in our countries and in Europe in general) there should be more activities aiming on supporting the individuals in threat of discrimination and violence, but also aiming at the mainstream youth in order to raise their understanding and level of tolerance. Thus, we have proposed another way of solving this problem through the network of Youth organisations and organisations working with youth. We have explored examples of good practices and implemented methods and strategies in the study visit that were explored and used, adapted, for the development of new tools and methods in a form of the Manual for local workshops for youth on homophobia and LGBT rights. By creating workshops manual tackling LGBT rights, homophobia, non-violence, respecting and accepting differences, we strived to give innovative tools in solving the problem of homophobia among youth and bullying in schools. We also took in concern good practices from the region and EU and different approaches in working with youth. The manual contains workshops on the subject of nonviolent communication, perception, conflicts, violence, prejudice and stereotypes, identities, non-violence, dealing with fear and mediation. The most important aspect is decentralisation and having participants from smaller cities and communities, that already have showed interest in advocating for LGBT rights and preparing local trainer who will continue the work in their communities. The 10 days long training course, as the main mobility activity of the project, put the manual into practice and examined it with the partners and participants, in the same time sharing the knowledge, tools and methods, materials and resources in educating youth workers and impact bearers, while receiving valuable feedback on the tools and methodology which have been applied in the final revision and preparation of the manual.
*Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.