Main goals and program of Activities

Parallel Lives 3, (Reconciling our Differences) is an action 3.1 youth exchange, involving 20 youth and ten leaders, with partners from Bulgaria, Macedonia, Romania, Ireland and,Kosovo to take place in Bundoran, Ireland in late October 2010. The themes of the project are twofold:

• to foster European awareness, and the importance of building a better Europe
• anti-discrimination training.

This will include building a template for intercultural mediation through non formal learning, with emphasis on bringing diverse European partners together, to learn through experience, role play, workshops and experiential methodologies, the importance of reconciling differences, whether they be cultural, faith, gender or ethnicity based, and how to move on from differences and conflict. The partners will take their learning of mediation and reconciliation back to their own groups and communities, and implement projects that will enhance their learning outcomes, integrate them into their own organisations and groups and disseminate them to a wider audience.

Program of activities

The exchange will run for six days excluding travel days:

Day 1: Introductions, group contract, expectations, energisers, break, energisers

Afternoon: introduction to intercultural mediation through short presentation, group work with questions , answers and examples, small group work to imagine conflict situation

Night: Irish group cultural evening – presenting “Halloween”

Day 2: Group meeting, icebreaker , energiser, recap of previous day, introduction to intercultural conflict mediation through drama and role play, each participant will contribute either through role play or in evaluation of exercises break

Defining the “conflict” triangle, cognitive, emotional, and behavioural, whole group work

Small group work, set a task, role play, each participant has a role to play in “set conflict” situation

Whole group work, evaluation of task, how it relates to “real time”

Building blocks exercise with two opposing teams (fun)

Afternoon: Activity at Adventure Centre :- team building through ropes/wall climbing/balance beam challenge

Night: Bulgarian cultural evening then free time

Day 3: Group meeting , icebreakers, energisers, recap, introduction to conflict resolution and building bridges

Break

Fun activity whole group work, problem solving and physical activity involving trust, leadership, and observing

Afternoon: energisers, and introduction to 6 stages of mediation, role play exercise, all participants have a role to play.

Evaluation of activiites to date.

Free time to explore town, beach, shops

Night: Macedonian Cultural evening then free time

Day 4: Group meeting, energiser, recap of evaluation and learning so far.Intercultural mediation with examples from each country of how it could be used, group discussion and reflection,

Break

Role play, using 6 stages of mediation, written instructions for small groups to map a conflict, frame it and solve or not a conflict situation arising on a youth exchange, “parallel universes – keeping our universes separate ”

Afternoon: Break into small groups to map out exercises, games, resources, role plays that could be used on a template for intercultural mediation for use in youth work.

Free time

Recap of work to date

Night: Kosovan cultural evening, then freetime

Day 5: Group meeting, energisers, recap of conflict, framing, resolution and mediation, recap of methodologies and nonformal learning techniques . Small group work on templates

Break

Presentation of templates, ideas and games role play and drama – group discussion

Whole group work on building blocks exercise, how has the teamwork improved !

Afternoon: Cliff jumping (art for those not participating in cliffjumping)

Night: romanian cultural evening, freetime

Day 6: Group meeting, energisers, recap of templates, mediation exercise (fun) problem solving

Break

Finalise templates, ideas, put onto discs on pc/laptops, and uploaded onto webpages.

Lunch

Tour of area by bus

Freetime then evaluation and housekeeping, (signing of participant sheets)

Night: farewell meal and party