Youth Meeting in Germany - "We can do it! III"

Integrative youth exchange in Berlin with the participation of ten countries

For the third consecutive time in the summer of 2007, GEB (Gesellschaft für Europabildung) organised the integrative youth exchange programme "We can do it!". The meeting dealt with the social integration of young people through various workshops (sports, cooking, music…) and address topics related to citizenship and European integration. All the workshops dealt to a final presentation at the end of the project.

The objective of the project was aimed at showing young people, with or without disabilities, how to develop self-confidence along with European awareness and identity in order to combat identifiable populist and nationalistic trends. The core objective was the continuing building of a European society in face of cultural, ethnical and religious differences.

“We can do it” concentrated not only on young people with disabilities; after the experiences of the past few years, the project currently emphasised the development of the feeling that things can be changed: this can help in improving the personal situation of young people as well as building and changing societal perspectives. 

Strategies

In addition to this complex topic, the Fürst-Donnersmarck Foundation posed questions on subjects ranging from which strategies can be deployed to promote the participation the disable youngster in the society and on which kind of initiatives with disabled people there are in Berlin. All these questions were important to young people, but not to such a degree as their own personal experience: I can do something and I want to do it!

Results and objectives

The objectives mentioned above can be easily formulated, but a meeting between youngsters for a ten-day period is not enough to achieve in-depth results. However, the groundwork can be laid with the aim of encouraging young people to continue building bridges. 

Despite the difficulties of managing 60 persons from ten different countries, some of them with physical disabilities, in a such big city as Berlin, the results of the project were satisfying. Many of the youngsters, especially those who took part in such a project for the first time, gained experience in dealings with people from various European countries which they can consequently apply to their own lives.

After the third edition of the project, GEB is looking forward to starting with the preparation of the next one: if we want to do it, we can do it again!

Look at the information about the preparation meeting of the project

Look at  the information about "We can do it! II"