Description
Project “ESu” (I am EU) – is a youth response to rapidly spreading virus of xenophobia which hinders full-fledged enjoyment of the rights for young people migrating over Europe for education, work or life. Project aims at fostering active citizenship through promoting volunteering and promotion of human right through raising awareness on xenophobia. Based on public opinion surveys educational tools for building positive attitude towards ethnic and religious diversity shall be developed, multicultural dialogue fostered through cross-sectoral activities involving NGOs, schools, public sector including round table discussions, human rights awareness workshops, recruitment/training of volunteers, production of video materials for dissemination online and in schools. Month-long awareness raising campaign shall cover schools in 2 biggest cities and continue in cinemas around Lithuania. Project promoter and related NGOs shall build their capacity, including study-visit to the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration. Target groups and beneficiaries: students of schools, colleges and universities, immigrants, society at large.
Summary of project results
Lithuania, as well as other European countries, are facing major social and political changes – a rise of nationalism, xenophobia and hate speech towards immigrants increase tensions within civil society and even among countries. The social environment for people moving around European countries for study, work, travel or living purposes is becoming less favourable and predictable. There are approx. 37 thousand foreigners from various parts of the world living in Lithuania. State authorities declare their welcome, respect and support for people of different nationalities, ethnicities, religions, etc. However, the reality is often different – foreigners face racist or xenophobic attacks too often, while institutions, and even universities, tend to hide the unpleasant situations or happenings, as well as do not speak about the issues publicly or put any public awareness raising efforts. "ESu" is a project aimed to create a preventive educational means, forming a positive public attitude towards foreigners and promoting multicultural dialogue. Project promoter has implemented a number of different activities and initiatives to draw attention of state institutions, academic communities, NGOs and society at large to the ways and means of creating safe environment for foreigners, foster inclusion, tolerance, multicultural understanding and anti-xenophobic attitudes. The activities included roundtable discussions, interviews with high school students from Lithuania and abroad, human rights awareness-raising training, creative workshops, course materials and video clips developed, visit to Norway for the best practices in hosting foreign nationals in the country, a month-long campaign to disseminate the project results in schools of Vilnius and Kaunas and cinema theatres all over Lithuania. The most visible of the activities was a campaign of short video clips that were aired in cinemas before movies, published on the internet and distributed to schools across Lithuania. More than 33,000 viewers saw these clips at cinemas, around 6,000 on the internet and around 2,000 school students watched them at schools during informal education sessions. The project impact should be notable beyond the completion of the activities, as the ideas disseminated during the campaign received positive feedback and were spread further to the society.
Summary of bilateral results