Project summary - English

The  Ma’an - Together project will be run by CADFA (UK),  Aux Couleurs de DEBA and Dar Assadaqa (Palestine). Over two years, the project will have a clear progression through youth workers’ trainings and media-focused youth exchanges in each country. This will inform and upskill youth workers and help them to tackle radicalisation by building a safe space for young people from the three countries to discuss complex issues, learn about other people’s lives,  develop critical thinking and common values and help them to take their voice outwards and campaign for human rights in a safe and peaceful way.

The objectives of the project are: 

• to bring young people from different backgrounds together and enable them to learn about each other's lives

• to create a safe space for young people to discuss complex issues and work peacefully for human rights and against discrimination •  to enable them to develop their skills in media and in speaking out about their experiences and ideas  

 • to train youth workers to strengthen young people against pressures to radicalise

•  to take the message and the methods of this project out more widely.

The project will begin with a youth workers’ training in the UK, which will bring together three youth workers and a leader from each country.  They will exchange understandings of youth work and the current pressures in their own countries, and methods to engage against radicalisation and for human rights. They will prepare all aspects of the following youth exchanges which will bring young people from different countries together to about others’ lives and take action for human rights in a safe and inclusive way.

The youth workers will practise the skills learned during three youth exchanges held in France, Palestine and the UK.  Each exchange will bring together young participants to learn about each other’s countries and learn how to take their voice outwards to work against discrimination and for human rights.  Each youth exchange will build on from the previous one as the groups develop knowledge and skills.  The first youth exchange (in France) will look at Anti-Discrimination ,  the second (in Palestine) at Human Rights, the third (in the UK) will focus on Taking Our Voice Outwards (in the UK).  Each will have three parts, beginning with "Listening and Comparing" when the participants present their own lives to the young people from the other groups. This will be done during a countryside residential. In the mid-part of each project, "Building a picture" will allow the group to meet local youth groups to find out about the local situation in relation to human rights and anti-discrimination.  with a recap of the questions, ideas and media from the previous one. This will be followed by small-group project work under the title "Making a Change."  A variety of non-formal ways of learning will include media work (film, photography and spoken presentations). In each exchange, small teams will do project work to produce outputs to show each other, and (in the last activity) work on ways to reach the wider public and local, national and European representatives. 

A final youth workers’ exchange in the UK will allow for a full evaluation of the whole project and for dissemination. 

The number of participants will be 111 but as people will take part in more than one exchange, this will be 50 or 60 different people. The reach of the project will be much wider as dissemination will be built in from the beginning.  The project will involve 3 youth workers and a leader from each country in Activity (1);   in Activities (2),(3) and (4), a leader, two youth workers and eight young people aged 16-20  from each country. The final activity (5) will again include 3 youth workers and a leader from each country.

The project will include public events to reach young people beyond the project, material will be made that will be disseminated and used for future work, young participants will be supported in doing feedback after exchanges and youth workers will cascade their training.  Following the project, materials and recommendations in relation to preventing radicalisation will be published and disseminated. The project will build capacity for the three partners who aim to continue to work together and spread this work more widely.