10-21/7/2017
Beja, Portugal
Youth Exchange
“Inspiring YOU(th)” Beja – Portugal
The youth exchange “Inspiring YOU(th)” took place in Beja, Portugal between the 10th-21st of July, Implemented by the Portuguese organization Check-In and funded by Erasmus+ .
The main aim of the project was to give youngsters the opportunity to share various experiences and their historical conflict and learn more about peace building. An interesting thing is that the countries involved in that program were countries that faced or still facing political conflict. The participant’s countries were: Bosnia Herzegovina, Cyprus, Georgia, Italy, Israel, Palestine, Portugal and Turkey.
Through those 10 days we have learned a lot about those countries in a historical and emotional level. All the participants had the opportunity to hear and present their national conflict and after that to talk about a personal item, that has an emotional value for them and it’s strongly connected with their national conflict. All the stories we heard during those sessions were very touching and remind us how much peace building is important around the world. However, we realized that peace building is not important only between countries, but also in our own houses. Another interesting activity we did was to share our personal conflicts in smaller groups and then learn how to manage with it using the non violent communication. It was a very helpful session as we have learnt the importance of good communication and its results.
Having said all that, I can say that Inspiring YOU(th) – Peace Building indeed inspired us and motivated all the participants to build a world made of peace and love. Listening to personal stories and not only getting information from media and internet, we can understand what conflicts can create and how can affect people’s lives. We are very thankful of being part of this program as it changed us a lot and make us see things we could not see before.
