KA2 Strategic Partnership – „BIC“ – North Macedonia

SFERA INTERNATIONAL was host of the Kick-off meeting for the project „Building Intercultural Competences“, which is a Strategic Partnership funded by the Erasmus plus programme. The Kick-off Meeting took place in Bitola, North Macedonia from 7-9 October 2019 where the partners met to discuss and prepare the project which will have the duration of 24 months.

Project info:

Compared to the past, the world has become globally open and young people need to leave their usual comfort zone and explore different lands through studying, working and travelling. This creates new multicultural environments on places, which are traditionally monocultural. However, Europe is facing major challenges in promoting social inclusion and cultural diversity as core values that unite the Member States. By exploring and sharing good practices and innovative methods and strategies of dealing with the challenges in multicultural environments for youth organisations and overcoming cultural shock, stereotyping, prejudices, discrimination and stigmatisation through intercultural communication and dialogue among young people, the project “Building Intercultural Competences” will raise awareness among young people about the importance of intercultural communication and mutual understanding.

The general objective of BIC project is to help young people understand the importance of social inclusion and cultural diversity and build intercultural competences.

The specific objectives are:

to provide young people with methods and strategies to overcome stereotyping and cultural shock by engaging them in debates, workshops and experiments and producing an interactive online guide for intercultural communication.
to contribute to capacity building and the organisational environment of youth organisations by exploring good practices in building and managing multicultural environments and producing an interactive online guide for NGOs, working with young people.

Project activities:

Exploring good practices in building and managing multicultural and integrative environment in youth organisations
Collecting good examples and creating strategies for overcoming stereotypes, prejudices, stigmatisation, discrimination and cultural shock in young people when moving to another country or when living, working or studying with foreign nationals at home
Engaging young people in debates about social inclusion, stereotypes and their consequences
Producing interactive online guides: ‘Guide on Intercultural Communication for Young People’, which offers methods and strategies for dealing with the challenges in multicultural environment, and ‘Guide on Building Multicultural Environments for Youth Organisations’, contributing to capacity building of the NGOs, working with young people.

The project is funded by the Erasmus + program tough the Bulgarian NA.