Проект Reclaim your hometown закликає до позитивної трансформації міського простору. Він відбудеться у Берліні 21-30.07 та у Новогродівці та Добропіллі 31.08-09.09. Обов'язкова участь в обох частинах проекту. Вік учасників - 25-35 років. Дедлайн - 20 травня 2017 р. (далі - англ.).

RECLAIM THE HOMETOWN:

German-Ukrainian youth exchange on participative citizenship and urban activism

21 – 30 July 2017

Berlin&Brandenburg, Germany 31August–9September2017

Kharkiv, Novogradovka and Dobropillya, Ukraine

with support of Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future” (EVZ) in the frame of the program Meet Up! German-Ukrainian Youth Encounters

Project organiser and partners

The youth encounters are organized by Kulturlabor Trial&Error e.V. emerged from youth initiative in a search for the own place, has experimented with self-organisation, urban interventions, community projects, upcycling and DIY. You can find out more about Trial&Error here.

Partners

Youth platform MOVE, Novogrodovka, Donetsk region https://vk.com/move_novogrodivka Youth center DOBRO, Dobropillya, Donetsk region, http://dobro4u.org/

Project background

Novogradovka and Dobropillya in the ex-mining area of Eastern Ukraine were a war zone quite recently. Tho currently recognised as safe, these areas are avoided if not ignored by the rest of the country suffering from lack of resources, isolation, mistrust. Berlin is a city in constant transition, being the uncrowned European queen of startups, fighting gentrification, facing influx of newcomers, still healing the scars of the wall, yet an inspiring sample on how active citizenship and urban activism can change the game. Nevertheless, due to economical, social and cultural disadvantages, young people from the Berlin Neukölln area, specially with migration background, have limited access to the knowledge and skills to participate in urban processes, voice their opinion and influence public discourse.

Aim and objectives of the project

The aim of the project “Reclaim Your hometown: creative activism tools for youth participation in Eastern Ukraine and Germany” is to bring young people together, develop their intercultural competences, discuss the problems in their local neighbourhoods, explore the concept of urban activism as a tool for social change, learn and share the tools of urban activism, cooperate to develop and implement own ideas on how to address social issues in the cities.

The objectives of the project are:

To promote democratic values, including freedom of speech, civic engagement, tolerance and others,

To provide space for intercultural dialogue and exchange between young people from Ukraine and Germany,

To share and exchange with tools of creative/urban activism,

To empower young people with fewer opportunities to own the public space in their city and support civil participation among youth,

To document and spread the project experience amongst the peers and networks of project participants and partners.

Project activities

Project participants will take active part in whole project - preparation, 1 visit in Germany, 1 visit in Ukraine and follow up activities, spreading the project results in their local comunities.

1st German-Ukrainian encounter will take place in Berlin/Brandenburg from 21st till 30th of July with arrival day on 21st of July, program days from 22nd till 29th of July and departure day on 30th of Julyrespectively.

2nd encounter will start in Kharkiv on 31st of August from arrival day. The group will stay in Kharkiv from 1st till 3rd of September and will be divided in 2 groups, each of them will continue the project in Novogradovka or Dobropillya from 4th till 7th of September. On 8th of September the group will meet again in Kharkiv for final event and evaluation. Departure day is 9th of September.

The participants will organized activities for public both in Berlin and Eastern Ukraine to present the work and ideas of the project participants. With the support of facilitators, development and implementation of 4 creative actions in Germany and 4 in Ukraine (in total

8. will be carried out byparticipants.

Participants

We expect to meet 16 participants in total, 8 from Germany and 8 from Ukraine. All participants selected for this project should meet the following criteria:

• age of 25-35 yearsold;

• active members of non-governmental organisations, youth initiatives orcollectives;

• engaged in localcommunity;

• highly motivated to learn and share about issues tackled in the encounters;

• with experience in one or more of the following fields: urban activism, street art, communitywork,freedomofspeech,socialmedia,photography,publicactionsand interventions,diy.

• are available for the participation in whole program - encounter inGermany, encounter in Ukraine, follow-up activities;

• are able to follow and contribute to program activities inEnglish.

We would like to emphasize, that it will be ensured that the encounters is free from intolerance, racism, sexism and all other sorts of discrimination. The selection of project participants will be based on their motivation and relevant experience.

Financial and practical conditions

The participation is totally free of charge for the participants, all the costs will be covered by the project. Travel costs of international participants will be covered by project organisers, in exchange for original receipts, based on the actual expenses up to 280 Euro/person. If needed visa and insurance cost will be covered up to 25 Euro/person.

 Application procedure

If you are based in Ukraine and would like to participate in this project, please send your application to [email protected].

Deadline for application is 20th of May, 2017. The title of email should include the country of origin. Application form is attached here. Applicants will be informed about the acceptance within 2 weeks.

If ou have any questions regarding the project and your application, don’t hesitate to contact us!