Intercult 2008
Culture has an important role in creation of economical and educational opportunities for young European citizens. Building the common European community we have to remember about the need to increase the role of the intercultural communication and education.
Because of differences in fundamental values and culture (muslim, Christians, non-religious) the civil society dialogue and intercultural communication becomes very important. Public and citizen media (TV, Web-TV, Video) is an ideal tool to foster this dialogue, to strengthen the dissemination of information and stimulating public debates on intercultural issues.
INTERCULT 2008 was the large scale European project aiming at promoting the intercultural dialogue as a process in which the young participants can improve and develop their skills to understand and deal with the cultural European environment and society. Project meant to raise the awareness of the importance of the active European citizenship, which respects cultural diversity and which is based on common European values.
The project actively integrated minority groups (Roma, immigrants) in the activities of the youth teams in Germany, France, Poland, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, United Kingdom, Hungary and Sweden. The guidelines of this thematic networking project were media creativity in combination with the intercultural and creative education (political, intercultural films, dance, art and music) of young people.
In the framework of the the INTERCULT 2008 project partners carried out training seminars, workshops and youth initiatives in the field of intercultural communication, medial and musical creativity, traditional dances and public debating, for multipliers and young people in 10 EU-countries. Young people (16-25) were engaged in youth meetings, local youth initiatives and youth exchanges. They produced films and tv-magazines concerning intercultural issues as well as intercultural music songs and dances within the scope of the seminars, local workshops and voluntary services. There were 10 presentations on the local level and on the European level. In a practical and attractive way, people saw, heard, felt, talked, understood and learned about their culture, the culture of other peoples and about the role and the importance of culture in their daily life. The local and European events were promoted by the Public NGO television all over Europe (http://ngotv.eu/, http://www.owtv.de/).
Intercult Festival
High spot of the project was the “Intercult Festival” from 24.-26 October in Münster (Germany). At this event the European youth showed the best results in exhibitions, concerts, debates and film presentations. It made an attempt to raise the awareness of the importance of developing an active European citizenship, which respects cultural diversity and which is based on common values of the EU.
