The first seminar: Poznań, 17 – 23 November 2008
&
The second seminar: Poznań, 23 – 29 March 2009

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS

Background of the training course

Since 1995 SCI Poland has been running the Educational Programme for young people in themes of human rights, refugees, ethnic minorities and combating racism and discrimination. Programme is based on conducting interactive workshops at schools for students, youth initiatives, local voluntary service activities and training events. Later it developed into large scale multi-annual education programmes involving many regional and international partners and experiences. We believe we gained the expertise we can proudly share with the others. Parallel to that, the international project “Youth Transcending New Frontiers” is conducted by partners Ukraine, Moldova, Russia and Belarus. It aims at strengthening human and organizational capacity of the voluntary youth organisations in running activities for human rights, combating xenophobia and discrimination and social exclusion.Both projects involve many activists and generate a huge pool of experiences. With our partners we came to a conclusion that we need a powerful bridge between the two projects and an advanced training for volunteer activists. This project can stimulate process of sharing experiences, developing regional cooperation and equipping volunteer activists with knowledge and skills necessary to implement human rights and anti-discrimination projects at local level with higher quality.

Aims and objectives

This project aims at strengthening impact of the human rights and anti-discrimination work realised by the youth volunteer activists from NGOs in Poland, Romania, Ukraine, Moldova and the Russian Federation.The project have the following objectives:

• to bring together volunteer activists involved in educational and local human rights and anti-discrimination activities;
• to equip them with advanced knowledge and skills to set stronger impact of activities organised locally;
• to facilitate and strengthen process of exchanging experience and good practices between organisations and their projects in the Eastern Europe in running educational and voluntary service activities.

Concept of the training course

The project is designed in form of advanced long-term training course, composed of the following three stages: 1. The first training seminar “Human rights education” This training seminar will take place in surroundings of Poznan, 17 – 23 November, including five working days and first and last days as travel days. Programme will include:
• advance training sessions on human rights education (e.g. new tendencies in human rights education methodologies, today challenges to human rights in participants’ countries);
• a platform to exchange experiences between participants (working methodologies, volunteer activities, raising awareness activities, involvement of local population);
• planning stage for the activities at the local level and continuation of sharing the experience internationally.

2. Reflection and Implementation stage
After the first training seminar (between November 2008 and March 2009) participants are expected to share their gained learning experiences with fellows from their sending organisations. They will be also committed to realise educational and public awareness activities at their local community environment. Their character and outline depends only on self-creativity, motivation as well as personal and organisational capacity. The sending organisations should get engaged in supporting their participants in carrying out their projects.Trainers team will support participants with consultancy and advices through e-mail, skype as well as by monitoring visits on place.

3. The second training seminar “Combating discrimination”. This training seminar will take place also in surroundings of Poznan, 23-29 March 2009 including five working days and first and last days as travel days. Programme will include:
• training sessions on identifying and combating discrimination (clarification of definitions: stereotypes, prejudice, racism; sources and functions of stereotype, different forms of discrimination, who and why is discriminated?, capacity of non-governmental organisations dealing with antidiscrimination);
• evaluating session of the local and international activities organised after the first training seminar;
• building on gathered experience and future plans.

Methodology

The programme of our training course will be conducted using an interactive and participative approach. A team of experienced trainers will design and carry out the programme of the course. Both learning from each other and learning by doing will be crucial. We will base our learning process on participants' experiences, active participation, group-work and teamwork, as well as theoretical inputs.Trainers team will be composed of five people, where four of them are recruited among SCI Poland’s pool of trainers having experience in human rights education. They will be supported by professional senior trainer Yael Ohana, who has extensive experience in running international training programmes, e.g. she was an Educational Advisor at the European Youth Centre of the Council of Europe.

Profile of participants

We are looking for 25 participants, who are activists (volunteers, staff-members, committee members) of the voluntary service organisations from Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia and Ukraine. All participants selected for this training course must meet the following criteria:
• able to work in English language;
• have been active in the organisation for at least one year, know the capacity of the organisation and have the opportunity to be active;
• have at least basic understanding of the human rights concepts and related issues;
• have strong motivation to act as multiplier in the field of human rights and anti-discrimination;
• have nomination and support of the eligible project partner organisation;
• commit to implement the learned knowledge and skills in practice back home;
• commit to report thoroughly the content of the training seminars to other activists of sending organisation;
• commit to actively participate during the whole duration of the training course,
• particularly IMPORTANT is that the same group of participants will attend both international training seminars.

Project partner organisations

This project is run in cooperation with the following organisations:
1. Stowarzyszenie “Jeden Świat” SCI Poland – Poznań, Poland;
2. Service Civil International the Romanian branch – Bucharest, Romania;
3. Asociatia de Voluntariat International din Moldova – Chisinau, Moldova;
4. Interregional Volunteer Organisation “SVIT-Ukraine” – Artemovsk, Ukraine;
5. Siberian Creative Group – Ulan-Ude, the Buryat Republic, the Russian Federation;
6. Youth center “Support of youth initiatives” “Sodrujestvo – Cheboxary, the Chuvash Republic, the Russian Federation.
The partner organisations commit themselves to provide their nominated participants with all necessary support and opportunities for implementing gained knowledge at local level.

Financial and practical conditions of participation

Participants’ travel expenses and visa fees will be fully reimbursed. Participants from Moldova, Romania and Ukraine will deal their travel expenses and visa fees with their respective Soros Foundation country offices. Participants from Russia and Poland will be reimbursed by SCI Poland (on presentation of the relevant receipts). Payment will be made either by bank transfer after the course, or at the end of the course in cash in Euros. Participants, who will attend less than 80% of training sessions time, might be excluded from reimbursement. Board and lodging will be provided by SCI Poland. No participation fee will be charged from participants.

Application procedure

Applications should be sent by e-mail to the following address: biuro @ jedenswiat.org.pl, latest by 31. August 2008. We expect also the sending organisations to attach their nomination letters. A group of 25 participants will be selected on the basis of the profile outlined above by the trainers team. All candidates should have nomination from their respective eligible project partner. The Polish participants can send their applications directly to the office. The project partner organisations might suggest the candidates from their organisations or make priority lists. The team will try to respect the organisations’ priorities as far as possible, but also to ensure a geographical balance, gender balance, different types of experiences, cultural backgrounds, organisations, institutions. The motivation and experiences of the individual participants are among the criteria taken into consideration during the selection process. Therefore we suggest to each partner organisation to nominate more candidates than the available places. The candidates will be informed about selection results latest by 15. September 2008.

More information is available from:

Miłosz Czerniejewski
Office Head and Project Coordinator
Stowarzyszenie “Jeden Świat” – Service Civil International Poland
ul. Krasińskiego 3A/1 , 60-830 Poznań, Poland
tel.: +48.61.84-84-336, fax.: +48.61.84-84-337, www.jedenswiat.org.pl,
e-mail: biuro @ jedenswiat.org.pl