Conflicts still constitute one of the biggest challenges of today’s world and we can see that also on Europe’s borders still many of them are going on. In order to promote the idea of non-violent conflict resolution, the conflict handling Youth in Action Training “Peacebuilding in Europe. Youth vs. Conflicts” took place in Asturias, Spain from September 2nd – 9th 2012.
The project was developed by the AEGEE Eastern Partnership Project Team.
During the training course, young people from conflict regions as well as students from other parts of Europe were trained in mediation and moderation of conflict solution processes. The aim of the whole YiA Training was to provide the participants coming from Armenia, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Moldova, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine with theoretical and practical knowledge of how to achieve a non-violent solution of conflicts and to enable them to engage in an open-minded exchange with other population groups as well as with people from other parts of Europe in order to create a peaceful atmosphere characterized by the tolerance and mutual understanding.
The entire project had 32 participants from the respective partners and AEGEE-Yerevan was presented by 6 participants, two of which were invited as the main trainers.
The experienced trainers conducted the sessions and seminars during which different working methods were applied in order to involve all the participants. Special focus was laid on the involvement of young people coming from the conflict regions. The main organizers believe that only by involving those young people we can ensure a sustainable impact of the training as the participants will use the knowledge and skills acquired back home in their societies in order to promote values which are also among the EU’s founding principles as well as among AEGEE’s aims, such as tolerance, peace and stability.
AEGEE-Yerevan members had an amazing contribution to the training course and expressed the current attitude of the Armenian youth towards peacebuilding in different corners of Europe, including as well as the South Caucasus. They also presented the Armenian culture, our cuisine and traditions during the specially organized European Cultural Night.
