Dissemination of the Timing toolkit

Youth workers from Marseille (France) using the Timing toolkit

Needs of our learners

In order to get to know the needs among our learners to develop intercultural dialogue, we’ve interviewed some of them. More specifically, three learners per organisation/country. So, it’s far from a scientific or representative analysis. It gave us some impressions and insights, furthermore it was interesting to compare the answers of the different countries in order to find ‘red lines’ .
We’ve talked about the meaning and experience of diversity and interculturality, about the barriers that we may encounter during the establishment of a relation with people from different backgrounds and about the reconciliation of different values.

Asking people about diversity is speaking about differences. About a plurality of cultures, about differences in religions, in gender, in identity,…Hereby it’s important not to focus only on cultural differences. We can also talk about diversity in the meaning of different people living together (without mentioning the differences). When we go more specific and talk about interculturality, we mean a way of trying to live together, doing something with the differences in order to make a better society (trough interaction/getting to know each other). Some people see interculturality as a stimulation of the government: we have to get to know each other, to tolerate each other. It’s a difficult word, and among some learners, there is no equal relation between the majority and minority.

The experience with diversity is mostly positive. Some learners experienced a negative atmosphere around immigrants (lot of distrust, stereotypes), and some of our immigrant learners experienced discrimination and social isolation when arriving a new country (lack of information of the social structures/way of living).
Barriers that our learners encountered during an establishment of a relation with people from different backgrounds were prejudges, narrow mindless, intolerance, religious and traditional behaviour, violence among younger people, lack of humour and education, not knowing the cultural codes (different kind of humour, behaviour, meeting…).

The majority of the learners thinks that different values can be reconciled.
Therefore we need respect, be open minded, focus on what connects us (common issues), knowing ‘the other’, looking for compromises . Hereby it’s important to dialogue and communicate.
Only a few learners are sceptic or think it’s difficult to reconcile different values.

Contact, exchange and interaction – through all kinds of events – are important elements in order to get to know each other.
In general, people need more opportunities to exchange (art, humour, common treats) – language schools are a good way to do this (mainly through games).

The majority of the learners find that organisations, but also language schools, must work on diversity.

People need correct information, so that they can fight against stereotypes and prejudges. Communication, dialogue and meetings are very important. People ask exchange of cultural practices, they want to create a positive atmosphere around diversity (respect/tolerance).

We’ve tried to implement the above described needs in our workshops.

Feelings of the French learners on the last meeting

“A good example of what interculturality can be. I first came here to see what it really means on a theorical level, for people working with intercultural groups, what can be created on the subject, what kind of tool had been created throughout the project. …Well ok, I also came to discover a part of Spain, discuss with people about their own experience: living abroad, working in social, and/or language fields, … and to ENJOY.
Now I am home again with the wish to go back to Spain and to some of the partners’ countries, and to know more about working on interculturality (for instance by using toolkit).”
Sabine Llewellyn, learner from France
“Any culture is, basically, multicultural and builds itself thanks to the contact between various communities of life which bring their ways of thinking, to feel and act. It is obvious that the cultural exchanges do not produce all the same effects nor consequences, but it is starting from these contacts that the cultural interbreeding and cultural hybridization will occur”.
This sentence summarize perfectly my experience in Oviedo for the Grundtvig ( Life Learning programme 2009-2011) project called “Timing”.
In 3 days I had the opportunity to meet social workers and teachers from several countries (Spain, Iceland, Denmark, Belgium and France) and to discuss about the development of direct practices aims to promote the intercultural dialogue through adult education. The realization of the “Intercultural tool kit” it’s probably the best result of the long and active cooperation between our Ngo, Eurocircle, and the other partners engaged in the project.
As learner, I was involved in several daily activities; we’ve discussed about the experience of diversity and interculturality, and about the barriers of stereotypes and fears that we may encounter in our relation with people from different backgrounds.
An interesting experience and an important push to work about my social and cultural skills: this was Oviedo.”
Umberto Bucci, learner from France

Last meeting in Spain… celebrating the toolkit!

Oviedo (Asturias) in Spain was the host city of the closing meeting of the project Timing, which took place from the 4th to the 6th of May, 2011. The partners of the project and some learners gathered for this special event dedicated to the presentation of the toolkit and the reflection about the dissemination and the continuation of the project.

The first day, the partners took some time to work together on the preparation of the Friday closing ceremony. Meanwhile, a workshop called “The Oviedo Intercultural Treasure Hunt” was held for the learners. It gave them the opportunity to discover the city and the inhabitants with new eyes. The workshop was followed by a debriefing with the feedback of the learners and the stories of their amazing encounters. The second day, we’ve launched the toolkit with the participation of professionals and learners from the partner countries as well as the representative of the local authorities:Don Herminio Sastre, Minister of Education in the Principality of Asturias, Doña Pilar Cortejoso, Grundtvig Associations Representative in the Principality of Asturias, Doña Susana del Olmo, Head of the Welfare and Inmigration Office in the Principality of Asturias, y Don Francisco García, Coordinator of the Young Offenders Institution in the Principality of Asturias.

We also held a “fair” with the presentation of partners’ countries and organizations followed by two parallel workshops on intercultural dialogue. In the afternoon, we made off to the seaside in Tereñes, Ribadesella to have lunch and to close Timing in a spectacular way. The project is coming to an end and we are now thinking about the evaluation of the project, how each partner will disseminate the project locally, nationally and internationally, how the project will continue to live and how to promote our practices and stimulating and tricky exchanges we had on intercultural dialogue during 2 years.

New! The video about the workshops in Copenhagen is available

New! Timing short movie about intercultural dialogue

Anna Lindh Digest: a new intercultural resource for dialogue

“The Anna Lindh Foundation has launched the First Edition of the Anna Lindh Digest (www.annalindhdigest.org), a new intercultural resource including a selection of links about Intercultural Affairs and a Media Review focused on Euromed civil society and Institutions.” 1/3/2011 www.enpi-info.eu