OPEN MINDS- 1ST PROJECT MEETING IN CROATIA

The first partner meeting of the OPEN MINDS project was held on April 19 and 20, 2024. in Samobor, Croatia. The meeting was organized by the project coordinator, Udruga ECHO with the participation of the Children’s Forum City of Samobor and project partners: Mladezhki sports club Varna from Bulgaria, To Hamogelo tou Paidiou from Greece and UISP Comitato Provinciale di Sassari from Italy.

The general objective of the Open minds for better future project is raising the awareness of school pupils (aged 10-14) and teachers in project partner countries (Croatia, Italy, Bulgaria, Greece) about the necessity to fight discrimination, racism, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance, including antigypsyism, anti-Black racism, antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred.

The topic of the first meeting is the unification of the questionnaire for teachers and students, which will give an insight at the situation in each of the project’s partner countries, the analysis of existing documents on the fight against discrimination and the fight against racism, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance. Project partners created a unified questionnaire for students aged 10 to 14 on issues such as discrimination, racism, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance, and questionnaire for  teachers on their awareness and competences on teaching the topics of the project.

At least 50 teachers will be trained per project country as part of capacity building on how to recognize, prevent and reduce all forms of discrimination, racism and xenophobia among children and implement comprehensive and high-quality prevention programs in a gender-sensitive manner. In order to include as many participants as possible, especially those with fewer opportunities, we will organize live and online workshops.

Through educational and creative activities, we will provide children aged 10-14 with the necessary awareness of fundamental human values. At least 100 children per country will be involved in project activities. The project’s creative activities will provide a fun, intuitive and motivating environment for teaching and raising children’s awareness of contemporary forms of racism, chauvinism, discrimination and intolerance. With this project, we want to bring together children of different nationalities and ethnicities by including migrant children, minorities and children with fewer opportunities in each country of the project.

Project OPEN MINDS is funded by the European Union through Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme (CERV). It will be implemented for 24 months (1 March 2024 – 28 February 2026).

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.