Let's remove the barriers,

a Youth Exchange with 26 young people

from Lithuania, Estonia, Romania and Turkey.

The activity took place from 12/10/2008 to 18/10/2008 in Aksaray, Turkey.

Youth Exchanges

Within the European 'Youth in Action' Programme, a Youth Exchange is a project where young people workand live together in an international group for a specific time. It consists of preparation, implementation, and follow-up activities. For the duration of the Youth Exchange, young people undertake a joint programme of activities with specific aims and objectives. Young people from different countries and backgrounds co-operate with each other supported by experienced youth workers and leaders. They develop personal, professional, and intercultural competences.

Youth Exchanges foster the mobility of young people in Europe. They encourage initiative and creativity in young people, facilitate their active participation in the project, and thereby provide an intercultural learning experience.Offering the added value of a European dimension, Youth Exchanges are quality-checked regarding content criteria and implementation.

Learning in Youth Exchanges:

Participation in a Youth Exchange provides access to non-formal learning activities following the European Key

Competences framework. Youth Exchanges help young people to gain new skills, knowledge, and attitudes as well as to learn using them in a variety of contexts.

They help to improve

> communication in a foreign language,

> communication skills (non-verbal, listening, speaking),

> self-confidence,

> the ability to interact with different cultures and environments,

> active participation in society,

> the ability to solve problems and to resolve conflicts in a group,

> turning ideas into action by planning, organising, and managing, and

> co-operating in a team.

Project activities undertaken

By means of the project, which brings 4 groups of people from Romania, Lithunia and Estonia in Turkey,

the topics of racism and xenophobia were discussed  for 7 days . Then they draw their attention on their real possibilities to work against racism and xenophobia through some workhop activities and the brainstorming practices on solutions through interactive activities. Finally they have some tours and the visits of the surroundings and cultural heritage in Aksaray ,Turkey.

Individual activities undertaken

Each person  was involved in the procedure of the project. He/she worked hard within the project studies of drawing their attention on the real possibilities to work on removing the barriers of prejudices ,racism and xenophobia, solutions through the interactive activities , workshops and the journeys with the 7 Turkish participants and 17 European

participants from Romania, Estonia and Lithuania.

The Youth Exchange was organised by Aksaray University Group Dynayouth in co-operation with NGO European Movement EURO 26 from Estonia, Virgil Madgearu Association Galati from Romania, Student Representative at Kaunas University of Technology from Lithuania.