Idea

OTHERNESS Project

Every individual is unique, equally worthy and has the right to live according to their beliefs, customs, practices and established behavior rules. Nowadays we live in a world in which globalization and migration have brought together people from different ethnic origins, religious backgrounds, beliefs, traditions and languages.

But sharing a common space does not automatically result in opening yourself to Otherness, trying to understand differences, valuing diversity and building common grounds for dialogue. Human rights, diversity, tolerance and non-violence related issues have become even more important considering the Charlie Hebdo shooting and all alerting January 2015 events in Paris and the following violence acts in other places round the world.

All “Otherness” partners come from countries which are at the EU external borders and also have large minority groups, which makes project objectives even more relevant in the context they exist. The project involves 4 partners from Bulgaria, Greece, Italy and Portugal. The participating institutions, 3 NGOs and a university, have strong background in designing training resources and providing trainings in civic education related topics and non-formal and formal education approaches.

We believe that schooling could play a key role in overcoming the historically developed negative attitudes to human differences, which is one of the key objectives of the project. Project activities aim at supporting students in being open-minded, understanding and valuing diversity, knowing and respecting human rights and being actively involved in community life. The realization of this role suggests that teachers have the knowledge, skills and tools which will enable them to provide training activities for students in the project subject areas.