Youth Exchange - "In the shoes of a pilgrim: a claim for a sustainable turism"

Objectives

 

By implementing this project we want to create a YE which allows its participants to think deeply about topics that are important for them as travellers and tourists, but also in their daily lives, in an atmosphere and a place deeply related with this issues; the Camino de Santiago. Questions like... How tourism changes people’s minds? How big can be its impact in a whole community? Why intolerance and xenophobia occures to different people? What can we do to prevent this? What makes us find attractive one specific destination? Usually people tend to fear the unknown and be hostile towards the things they cannot comprehend. This project will give participants a possibility to deeply understand other cultures, to comprehend other culture people behavior and thus, lower or totally denying their intolerance towards different people and xenophobia. Such an easy, at first glance, process of reflection 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. If to specify, objectives of the projects are: To raise self, cultural and ethnic awareness through non-formal educational methods. To develop self-reflection and the 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, lifelong connections.

 Activities

“In the shoes of a pilgrim: a claim for a sustainable tourism” is a youth exchange for 30 young people from 6 different countries and cultures. Part of them living in countries, which suffering from intercultural hostility issues. Participants we choosing are enthusiastic, interested in the topic, and willing to contribute to the project, participating actively. As the project will be held in English, participants should be able to express themselves in this language. This project follows the notions of non-formal education methods and will provide unique activities for the participants to have a better understanding of the roots of own and other cultures and how the interaction between them while travelling affects them in very several ways. We expect our participants’ views and thoughts to be spread later within their home countries, communities and maybe, eventually, they will try to travel in a different way, paying more attention to local cultures and those items of them that are getting lost with globalization process… For those participants who work, willing to work or somehow connected with the tourism sector it is a great opportunity to learn how to get more familiar with someone else’s culture and its importance for the travellers and locals experiences.

 Impact

The desired impact is to enhance understanding among people from different backgrounds and cultures in the impact that tourism can make on local communities. We strongly believe that tourism can be far more than a tool for economic development and wealth if its practice is carried out by the traveller with a deeper sight and also if the locals try to offer their cultural items putting attention on its meaning and authenticity. With this project we want to unite 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 and unique about their own. Therefore, we expect this youth exchange to become a great boost to enhance the knowledge of our new generation and promote peaceful future. With this project we want to get to the deepest basics of different cultures, showing people the impact that an activity like travelling has in the world of today but also in our common history as humans. 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.