“Show difference- discover similarities”: Lithuania without xenophobia”. This was the slogan that youths from six different countries came up with during a workshop organised by the project ESu (I am the EU). The participants at the workshop were all foreigners working or studying in Lithuania and were gathered at the workshop to share their experiences of being foreigners in Lithuania and to come up with ideas on how to fight xenophobia.
Photo competition
One of the ideas they come up with was the photo competition “How to eat your porridge”, asking people to take pictures of themselves while eating porridge. The idea behind the competition is that while food is something that brings people together, it is also a marker for cultural differences. People from different cultures eat different kinds of food and also consume their food in different ways. The message of the competition is that while we are all similar, we are also all unique and that is something that should be celebrated.
Important funding
Through the Funds for Non-Governmental Organisations, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway have allocated about €160 million to strengthen civil society in the 16 beneficiary countries of Grants. This makes the funds one of the biggest funding schemes for civil society in Central Europe. The support aims both to strengthen the capacity of the sector itself as well as support non-governmental organisations in their efforts to promote human rights, democracy and equality.
Click here to watch a video about the project