Training Course: “Faith to divide, faith to unite” – Interfaith Dialogue in youth work

Location: Armenia

Dates: 20-29 June 2017

Number of participants: 30

Participating countries: UK (2 places left!), Turkey (1 place left!), Denmark, Italy, Portugal, Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Germany, Georgia, Armenia, Romania

Organizer: Dialogos, New Armenia, ICIRLD

Apply here: Application form

Deadline to apply: ASAP

Inquiries about this training course: Suren at suren@intercultural.center

Costs: This project is financed by the Erasmus+ Youth in Action Programme. No fee is taken.

“Faith to divide, faith to unite” – Interfaith Dialogue in youth work

Download here: Training Course – Faith to divide, faith to unite – Interfaith Dialogue in youth work – Armenia – abroadship.org

Click to access FINAL-Info-Pack_Interfaith-2017-abraodship.pdf

Although religious identification is seen on a decrease in many western European states, tensions and discrimination based on religious terms still form a common concern. In most of the states the school systems unfortunately fail to give an education, which would at least cover the basic features of the main world religions, instead either focusing on one or leaving the topic out completely. The media on the other hand tends to transmit an undifferentiated picture of religious minorities and often reproduces stereotypical perception of ‘the other’. Especially in the light of the refugee crisis and the increasing religious diversification in western European states, the need for projects, which give the chance for a constructive and mutual exchange between faith groups can be clearly seen.

Concerning the EECA partner region the starting point is slightly different. Religious has often re-gained importance in several states after its harsh suppression during the Soviet Union. This growing importance however also includes the risk of a marginalization of minority religions, which members are often living in the region for several centuries. This also justifies the need for dialogue activities, which will raise the sensitivity of especially young people towards other faiths. In general youth work activities are still less developed in the region due to a lack of institutional support and capacity building measures in this thematic field would have a big impact.

Taken the described context into consideration, the proposed training course “Faith to divide, Faith to unite – Interreligious Dialogue in Youth Work “wants to gather youth worker and youth leaders from programme an EECA

Objectives of the Training Course

·      To give youth workers and youth leaders the chance for a personal reflection on important topics related to inter-faith dialogue and their own motivation to run activities in this field

·      To raise the participant’s intercultural sensitivity through exploring various faiths as well as the principles of constructive dialogue among religions

·      To equip youth workers and youth leaders with tools and methods, which they can use for inter-faith dialogue activities with young people

·       To create a network of likeminded individuals and organizations who would like to further explore the topic of inter-faith dialogue and to work on follow-up projects for young people of divers religious backgrounds

Venue

The event will be held in one of the most popular hotels in Aghveran (50 km away from Yerevan, the capital of Armenia), in the mountainous forest – the Aghveran Park Resort hotel . It has proven to be able to host international youth activities on a high quality level. The nature is very nice in the surroundings of the Hotel with lots of forests.

The weather in summer in Armenia is relatively hot so please make sure you take appropriate clothes with you. Please also keep in mind that the project venue is in the mountains and there might be some sudden weather changes, so you would also need a rainproof jacket.

The rest house is fully equipped to host international projects with appropriate equipment, working spaces and leisure time activities. You will be sharing a double or triple room with another person/s of the same sex, each room has one bathroom. There are towels and bed linen in the hotel. Internet is available in/around the training hall and in most of the rooms.

The chef of the hotel (as well as other representatives) will be informed about the special needs of participants regarding the nutrition (such as vegetarian/vegan food, allergic issues, etc.) beforehand.

Note: The hosting organizations can support you in arranging accommodation for participants who arrive earlier to Armenia or need to stay longer

Travelling to the venue
As a participant you are obliged to arrive no later than 20th of June to Yerevan and leave not earlier than 29th of June, 2017.

You are allowed to arrive 3 days earlier or leave 3 days later, but the total number of days off the project must be not higher than 3 days. For instance, you can arrive on 18th june (you will be compensated for traveling expenses), explore Yerevan for few days on your own expense (accommodation and food are not compensated) and then from 21th join the programme and leave no later than 29th June (in this case you are not allowed to leave later, because 3 days are already used).

There are two options to arrive to Armenia. First, take a flight to Yerevan Zvartnots International Airport from all the countries except Georgia; from Georgia you can either take a train or a minibus. Second, and usually cheaper option, is to arrive to Tbilisi International airport (Georgia) or Kutaisi airport (Georgia) and travel to Yerevan from there.

All participants will be picked up from the Airport, Train or Bus Station and we will arrange your transportation to the Airport, Train or Bus Station after the project. You will receive more detailed information regarding picking you up and transportation to the project venue once we receive your travel information. Please look at the Airport, Train/Bus Station for the volunteer with a paper with the name of our project. In emergency cases contact our project coordinators. You will receive step-by-step instructions and additional information on travel arrangements in a separate document.

VISA Arrangement
Most of the participating countries do not need visa to enter Armenia. In case you have a different nationality then your country of residency please inform us immediately to check if additional procedures need to be done. Please, take your PASSPORTS with you. You have to have a valid passport to enter Armenia.

Participants from Turkey will get visa on border as before. Consider having 3000 AMD (about 6-7 EUR) with you for paying for your short term 21 days’ single entry visa. Please, try to send participants from Turkey who have ordinary passports. For a participant with a green passport or a diplomatic passport there has to be a special invitation letter from us and it takes some time to make and approve it by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Preparation

NGO Fair: As one of the assumption of the activity is to give participants a chance to establish a network of like-minded organizations active in the field of working with youth, we reserved a session for you to present your sending organizations and make some professional connections for the future project development. For this, please bring some informational materials, pictures, reports from the previous projects and anything else you will find useful during your presentations. As we have many participating organizations, the session will be organized as an NGO Fair, which means you will be given some time to prepare a good old analogue poster and which also means that there will be no space for individual Power Point presentations.

International Sweet Box: During the coffee breaks at the hotel where the project is organized only tea and coffee will be provided. That is why we would like to ask you to bring some sweets (candies, cookies etc) from your country and contribute to the international sweet box that will be additionally served during the breaks.

Intercultural Night: We will have an evening for country presentations. You will have a chance to present your country with drinks and food, however, we ask to bring only home-made or made by small local shops (not factories) drinks and food to celebrate variety. We ask to bring something really special and authentic, best of all what you individually love. Perhaps something made by yourself (using grandmother’s recipe?) or father (mother, sister?). We would also love to see how your country celebrates diversity and multiculturality. We would love to see presentations done in a non-formal / informal / interactive way, involving participants, addressing multiple senses (dance, game, quiz, story, song).

Before arrival to Training Course: Prepare a short video, movie, presentation, take pictures, write a creative text (or anything that comes to your mind) on the interfaith situation or issues in your country and post it in the Facebook group so that other participants would get to know the realities of other European countries. You are welcome to do it in national groups or individually – your choice. If you are representing a faoith group, then we will organize a living library session with those participants which will be comfortable with sharing with the others about their spiritual tradition or faith.

Profile of Participants

There are 1,2 participants from each organization. The profile of the participant is:

Youth workers and youth leaders …

Ø  … interested in an in-depth reflection on their own attitudes towards inter-faith dialogue

Ø  … having the possibility and motivation to make use of their newly gained skills in their work with young people afterwards

Ø  … interested in setting up cooperation with similar organizations from other European countries

Ø  … being able to communicate fluently in English

Special Needs and Insurance
In case of having special needs, whatever kind they are of, please feel free to communicate these needs to us (allergies, disability, vegetarian, etc.).

Health insurance is not provided by the organizers. All participants are required to purchase health insurance individually. In general, it is very important to have health insurance cards (travel insurance), and we strongly advise to acquire for the dates to be spent in Armenia (in case unforeseen incidents occur).

Traveling costs

Travel costs for participants will be reimbursed up to the following maximum amounts:

The amounts are set by the European Commission based on the distance to the venue. Please remember that the lump sum will have to cover your transportation from Yerevan to Aghveran and back (20 EUR in total). You will receive a separate document on travel arrangements with a step-by-step instructions.

Participants, who will have considerable difficulties for pre-paying their flight tickets, will have opportunity to collaborate (with mediation of organizers) with a local travel agency in Armenia, who will arrange the travel ticket for them.

Registration
Please fill in the Application form that you will find following the LINK made by the trainers in order to provide quality learning process based on the profile and needs of the participants. The deadline for the applications is ASAP.

Please note as well that the Training Course will be announced on the SALTO-YOUTH.NET website to provide a better variety of participants, but the priority will be always given to the project initial partners.

Infopack

Download here: Training Course – Faith to divide, faith to unite – Interfaith Dialogue in youth work – Armenia – abroadship.org

Click to access FINAL-Info-Pack_Interfaith-2017-abraodship.pdf

Click to access FINAL-Info-Pack_Interfaith-2017-abraodship.pdf