Reaching the Diversity: Making International Youth Exchange Inclusive to All young People

The theme of the project is youth participation and inclusion of young people with fewer opportunities in International Youth Exchanges.
The project will assemble partners that will discuss, share and develop strategies and methodologies under the theme ‘’How to include young people with fewer opportunities on International Youth Exchanges (IYE)’’.
The project attempts to empower and train youth leaders and workers to support and develop IYE where the diversity of young people with fewer opportunities is addressed and included. Though we recognize and promote the importance of cultural diversity in society we aim also to increase awareness of the diversity in terms of social and economical backgrounds, sexual and religious orientation and disabilities among other marginalized groups that are building the European mosaic where young people live and are part of it.
The project will be implemented in several continuous stages during 2008. To reach these objectives some diverse activities like one seminar, one training course, one IYE and one evaluation meeting will be organized. A webpage platform, a publication with the recommendations and tools discussed and developed during the several activities will be prepared and supported by an interactive CD-ROM.
The use of a non formal education approached for the involvement of the participants into the constant process of reflection, implementation and evaluation of their actions and of the activities developed shall be the main methodology of reaching the goals.
With the implementation of the project we aim to reach the following objectives:

• To develop skills, knowledge and attitudes (SKA’s) of the participants in order to empower and motivate them to foster social changes by developing International youth Exchanges where young people with fewer opportunities are also included.
• To share best practices and experiences among youth organizations working with different target groups using Action 1 of the Youth in Action Programme (YiA) or the previous Youth Programme in order to develop strategies to reach the diversity of young people with fewer opportunities;
• To improve the quality and quantity of IYE where young people with fewer opportunities are included;
• To create awareness on young people of the diversity that exists in our society and communities;
• To develop and improve approaches to reach young people with fewer opportunities and encourage their active participation in the YiA programme using the possibilities it provides with a special focus on the Action 1 – International Youth Exchanges. 
• To promote non-formal education methodology, peer education and long life learning processes;
• To promote the development of IYE where the values on which the European civil society is based: democracy, human rights and active participation, reaches all the European youth in an equal opportunities basis.