Youth Exchange - "I don't believe in meigas, but in Valdeorras there are"

Objectives

Galicia and its witches are well known in the national territory, clearly marking one of the tourist attractions today, especially in Santiago de Compostela. The oldest references date back to the 13th century and since then, these legends have directly influenced the cultural evolution of this region. Thus, this project tries to exchange different perspectives on witches, sharing reflections among the participants thanks to their experiences or stories that a family member or friend has told them. A dialogue and debate will be sought about those traditional legends of each of the countries where youth participants are from, with an emphasis on cultural exchange and the difference between legends even though the base of witchcraft is the same. Also, the remote and isolated environment where they are going to be hosted, will encourage a more relaxed atmosphere to engage in deep debates and talks on topics such as, for example, how minority communities such as Rome have felt discriminated throughout history for having been branded as witches. Many cases like this minority community will be covered in the dialogues that participants will add their different perspectives due to their different backgrounds, but always promoting tolerance, respect and empathy. People used to fear the unknown, to be hostile towards everything, that they cannot comprehend.

 This project will give participants a possibility to deeply understand other cultures, to comprehend other people´s behaviour and thus, lower or totally denying their intolerance towards different people and xenophobia. Such an easy, at first glance, knowledge may totally change one's world view and attitude. By spreading this information after project, we aiming to lower tension in places, suffering from intercultural hostility issues.

 In this way, some of the main objectives of Valdeorras Vive with this project focus on: - To raise self, cultural and ethnic awareness through non-formal educational methods. - To develop self-reflection and the 8 key competences and skills among the participants. - To optimise the effectiveness and creativeness using a competency-based approach. - To reinforce understanding and interest in other cultures and their views, basic concepts and peculiarities through intercultural learning. - To promote positive and respectful attitudes toward various cultures, people and their specialty. - To increase levels of tolerance, peace and cooperation. - To create strong and lifelong connections.

 Activities

Workshops, activities, debates, forum theatre and video-making activity based on old tales and traditional stories about witches are planned to be developed in this Youth Exchange, as it is well-described in the Infopack attached and Activities Excel Plan. In addition, we will give the possibility of visiting several places near the Valdeorras area such as the natural rock cave in the Corzos river called "A Cántara da Moura" in A Veiga, where the stories of witches in natural areas are well known among the local population. Nights of Meigas will also be part of the project, showing participants deeply rooted Galician traditions such as telling stories around the bonfire while quoting the witches' incantation when the queimada is cooked.

 Moreover, the fact that the participants are in Peña Trevinca, in a rural hotel on the peak of the highest mountain in Galicia at 1800m altitude, also gives the possibility of interacting with the natural environment that surrounds them, being able to understand the heart of the Galician culture of the interior in its greatest splendour. Some activities will take place outside, so then a deeply debate of profound topics will be achieved.

 Our target group will be 38 participants. The participant´s profile will be five young people from 6 different countries from 18-30 years old (1 group leader without age limitation and 4 participants) plus eight participants from the Spanish team. This last team will be integrated by four team members of Valdeorras Vive NGO and the other half will be external participants; creating in this way diversity between thoughts inside the host country group. Moreover, participant´s profile may be:

 - Enthusiastic and interested in the topic and young people who are willing to contribute the project. - Able to participate the whole project (it is going to be hosted in an isolated hotel, so participants won´t be able to arrive after or to leave before the arrival/departure day as it´s establish on the project because of logistics of transportation). - Good command of English language. - Eager to exchange thoughts with participants with other backgrounds and cultures.

 Impact

The desired impact is to enhance understanding among people from different cultures on a much deeper level than usually. We believe that it is a key for peace: getting familiar with the folklore, tales, childhood ideas, etc, will bring us a much deeper understanding of cultures and, therefore, each other. With this Project we want to connect people by showing the reasons of why they are so different but unique at the same time. On the local, regional and national levels we want our participants to explore the key differences and peculiarities of other cultures, as well as discovering something new about themselves that was locked down and hidden from their childhood experiences. Therefore, we expect this Youth Exchange to become a great boost to improve the knowledge of our new generation and promote peaceful future.

 With this project we want to get the deepest basis of different cultures, showing people the variety of virtues promoted by tales, and accordingly, lifestyles. This is our main goal, which will result in deep understanding of foreign cultures and their beautiful diversity, which, in turn, will result in decreasing (or completely denying) intolerance, xenophobia and prejudices among the participants.