I Act international action day planning meeting

I act main pageEight committed members of the I Act project came together for three days in Tbilisi to prepare the upcoming I Act international action day taking place on 25 November. A key part of the 'I Act' for the prevention of sexual violence project, the members prepared the soon-to-be-released activity pack, prepared communications and strategies around the action day, designed publicity materials and updated the I Act online hub. The exciting new resources will be sent to all member organisations at the start of November! The project is in partnership with the European Youth Foundation. You can find out more about the project here.

Community, Care and Capitalism - Who cares?

The seminar 'Community, Care and Capitalism - Who cares?' brought together 20 members of IFM-SEI and YES/IUSY at the Kurt Löwenstein Education Centre, near Berlin. In the seminar, participants explored feminist theories and critiques of capitalism of care and health and developed ideas of how to respond to capitalist gender division of labour and how to build communities that take care of each other.The seminar explored why is it especially women and migrants taking care of others without being appropriately recognised for it, and what our capitalist society does with people who are stigmatized as non-functional (e.g. suffering from mental health issues).

International Summerschool 2017

The International Summerschool 'Acting for Peace - Overcoming Violence' brought together around 50 IFM-SEI and YES/IUSY members to explore what is going on in and around Europe with regards to conflict and peace. Members aged 18-30 came together in late August at the Kurt Löwenstein Education Centre near Berlin. Participants discussed the reasons for violent conflicts and wars, explored what neo-colonialism has to do with conflict, and how societies can find a way out of conflict and recreate a democratic social order. They also discussed what the concept of peace means to us and what is our role as young European activists in the consolidation of peace.

IFM-SEI Presidium - August 2017

Framfylkingen, our member organisation from Norway, kindly hosted the third face-to-face Presidium meeting of 2017 at the Sørmarka Conference Centre, home of the Trade Unions in Norway, and on the island of Utøya. The Presidium meeting took place shortly before the Willy Brandt Conference. The Presidium discussed a range of topics including an IFM-SEI children's rights consultation, communications plan, finances and membership fees, enacting the Code of Conduct and upcoming statutory meetings. Presidium also undertook the one-year review of the strategic work plan 2016-19.

Willy Brandt Conference - Youth Against Extremism

On 1-3 September, over 100 participants from 22 countries came together from all world regions to take part in a conference on extremism at Utøya. The Willy Brandt Conference - Youth AgainstExtremism built awareness around the topic of right-wing extremism, with participants taking part in workshops, receiving lectures from experts on the topic and having the chance to reflect of the horrific attack of 22 July 2010 on the island of Utøya. Participants also visited the 22 July memorial centre and visited the Nobel Peace Prize Center in Oslo. 

Döbriach International Camp 2017

Rote Falken Kinderfreunde Austria invited groups from IFM-SEI to their amazing campsite in the south of Austria to create the Children's Republic of Döbriach. It was a big, colourful and lively international Camp 2017 where families, kids, as well as young people up to the age of 16 and their leaders met to spend two awesome weeks together.

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Take a look at their Facebook page to see some photos.

International Committee 2017

The International Committee is the second-highest decision-making body of IFM-SEI - We came together at the Slovenian coast, with our hosts the Slovenian Falcons, to discuss resolutions, find out what the leadership has been doing in the last year, take part in workshops and plan the future of our movement. And of course there was plenty of time for the organisations to present your projects and developments and to network with the other delegates.

Read here the article about the new MOs

On the Move seminar III - regional youth work

Participants from Africa, Latin America and Europe came together in the beautiful city of Vienna in June to explore the topic of regional youth work, in relation tot he topic of flight and migration. We explored regional youth work as a whole, covering everything from grants and fundraising to the theory and practice of intercultural learning. The participants developed an online e-learning course during the week, due to be launched in September 2017 so IFM-SEI organisations can engage with topic no matter where they're situated in the world!

Queer Easter 2017: queering pop culture and education

Members from IFM-SEI, YES and IUSY came together a week for the biggest socialist, educational LGBTQI event in Europe! The programme looked at all aspects of sexuality and gender experience and theory, with special attention on the effects of pop culture on queer subculture and vice versa. Participants tackled questions such as how does queer subculture criticise pop culture while relabelling it as their own? It was a week to remember for the 80 young people who spent the week debating, discussing, creating and having fun!

The Faucons Rouges' Activity Weekend 2017 in Namur

Over 100 young people from across Wallonia took over the city of Namur for their activity weekend in May. International guests also joined them for this fun-filled programme. Being based at the YHA adjacent to the river, participants had the opportunity to take part in everything from water sports and cycle trips, to games and activities in the citadel and work out puzzles while running around the city. The first day was designed for older teenagers and the second day for 12-13 year olds. Great fun was had by all and we can't wait for next year!

Training of Trainers for the prevention of sexual violence

Participants from 8 European organisations took part in an intensive and challenging Training of Trainers on the prevention of sexual violence as part of our I Act project in Darsham, UK, in May. A new generation of multipliers on the topic were nurtured through a programme covering topics such as recognising patterns of sexual violence, thinking about how to identify sexual violence, analysing power structures in relation to sexual violence and coming up with methods about how to put the bystander model into practice. We acted! Will you?

On the Move seminar II - exploring visas

For a week participants from 10 memeber organisations from Africa, Latin America and Europe met in Recife, Brazil, to talk about visas and how they affect us as internationalist youth movements, as part of the project On the Move. During the week a common understanding about visas was developed, we explored why some people are structurally discriminated by the visa system and we looked at global migration patterns. A new visa website is being developed by the participants - watch out in July for the website launch!

Children on the Move study session

30 participants from IFM-SEI and other organisations came together to talk about migration and refugees with special focus on the children perspective and unaccompanied minors at the European Youth Centre in Strasbourg at the start of March. We looked at the global perspective and how it affects our organisations, looking at the systemic reasons for migration. The last part of the study session was dedicated to develop projects that the participants can implement in their own organisations - we can't wait to see them come into fruition.

YO!Fest 2017 - 25 years of the Maastricht Treaty

A delegation of IFM-SEI members from across Europe joined the 8th edition of the YO!Fest (Youth Opinion Festival), the annual political youth-led festival organised by the European Youth Forum. Joining 3000 other young people in Maastricht in February, IFM-SEI presented our new I Act project, hearing from other young people how they would respond to instances of sexual violence in their organisations and communities. We also contributed to an International House activity with other organisations such as Erasmus Student Network and the World Organisation of the Scout Movement, where young people got to explore the key themes of the event, such as participation and peace, and share their ideas with decision-makers.We can't wait until next year's festival!

 

'I Act' focus group meeting

The 'I Act' focus group came together in Vilnius, Lithuania, to explore the topic of power-based violence and sexual violence in relation to the new I Act project on the prevention of sexual violence. The five members of the focus group came together to receive comprehensive training from Maria Almario, a New York based trainer on the topic. The focus group also developed a detailed work plan for delivering the project throughout 2017, including planning the upcoming Training of Trainers seminar on the prevention of sexual violence taking place in May in the UK and putting into action the creation of an online platform, which will offer our organisations and members lots of creative tools and materials on the topic. The focus group meeting was supported by the European Youth Foundation. You can find out more about the project here and look at the existing campaign materials here.

All In study session 2016

25 participants from IFM-SEI and the European Network on Independent Living (ENIL) Youth Network came together in a mixed ability study session to discuss how we can make our organisations more inclusive and empowering for all. In partnership with the Council of Europe, the participants discussed what inclusion means to us, power and privilege in relation to inclusion, the Council of Europe disability strategy and developing 'inclusion in action' projects. The study session had many rich outcomes, including the establishment of an IFM-SEI accessibility network, a guide about how to make non-formal methods and activities inclusive, and an online campaign about anti-capitalism and inclusion. We're excited this is only the start of our ongoing partnership between IFM-SEI and ENIL Youth!

Group photo of the study session participants and team

 

On the Move: Flight and Migration

In October 2016, the first expert meeting of the On the Move project with the theme of ‘Flight and Migration’ took place in Catalunya. It brought together one person per partner organisation to discuss the reasons for flight and migration in history and the situation refugees face today in Europe, Africa and Latin America. The group exchanged experiences of working with refugees or migrants in their organisations and draft tips for youth workers and organisations before preparing an outline for an online course on the topic in which other youth workers of the partner organisations and the wider network of IFM-SEI can participate. 

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European Falcon Network Meeting

During a weekend 30 members from 12 European IFM-SEI organisations came together for the European Falcon Network meeting in Helsinki, Stockholm and on a ferry in between the two cities. They discussed Erasmus+ funding, an IFM-SEI Pool of Trainers, organising international camps and international solidarity projects. Lots of common projects in the pipeline.

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IFM-SEI Camp: Welcome to Another World

IFM-SEI’s event of the year happened this summer from 23rd July - 5th August! Hosted by our German member organisation SJD - Die Falken, it took place at the Willy Brandt Zeltlagerplatz in Reinwarzhofen. The camp brought together 2500 children, young people and leaders from 30 of our member organisations across the globe to live as an international socialist community for 2 weeks and take part in a fun, engaging central programme. Do you want to know what happened? Then have a look here.camp-logo-small

 

 

Partnerships for Participation

P4PThe Partnerships for Participation project ran throughout 2015 and aimed to strengthen our work on empowering young people to participate in external decision-making. We wanted to address the issue head-on given the lower and lower rates of young voter turnout in elections on all levels and because of an increased frustration of young people with institutions in times of crisis worldwide. The project sent 10 global EVS volunteers from our member organisations to others across the world to work with teenagers in their local communities. They helped to promote the active participation of children in decision-making and show that with safe and meaningful participation structures in place, teenagers can work effectively with decision-makers to have their strong opinions heard. At the end of the project, we produced a Child Participation Handbook to raise awareness of the importance of child participation and to support educators to empower children and young people to participate in decision-making.

Study Session 2015

IFM-SEI’s study session in May 2015 was held at the European Youth Centre in Strasbourg. Entitled ‘Charter for All: Putting Human Rights Education and Education for Democratic Citizenship into Action’, the seminar re-examined why we do human rights education, what competencies it gives young people and especially how we do it. Through planning and running educational activities using nonformal education methods, participants gained self-confidence as an educator, got to know a wealth of new methods to use in their local organisations and learned important tips on how to conduct and especially debrief human rights education and education for democratic citizenship activities.

If you want to know more about the results and methodology of the study session, have a look at the report.

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Peace Education

IFM-SEI ran two parallel seminars on Peace Education at the Kurt Lӧwenstein Haus in Werftpfuhl, Germany in May 2015. One focused on War and Conflict and the other on Mediation. Participants reflected on interpersonal to international aspects of conflicts in the world and learned about mediation techniques for conflict resolutions. 45 young educators from Europe and the Middle East came together and gained skills to promote peace education, shared challenges and good practices. Following on from these seminars, we created an educational handbook to promote peace education, and the blog Stories of Conflict and Peace to give more young members of IFM-SEI the chance to share their experiences and reflections on young people and conflicts, conflict transformation and peace education.

The handbook is available in lots of different languages! Use it in English, French, Spanish, German, Hebrew or Arabic! You can also order hard copies (Spanish and English) for 3 Euros + postage from contact@ifm-sei.org.

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All Together 2.0

All Together 2.0 GermanyIn 2014, two training courses took place for the All Together 2.0 project which aimed to mainstream social inclusion in IFM-SEI at all levels. The first seminar took place in May in Oer-Erkenschwick, Germany with a group of 18 young educators who learned how to become more inclusive in their local organisations and how to support local inclusion projects. In October, a second seminar took place in Finland where the group analysed and explored the implementation of their projects, peer-reviewed each other’s strategies, which included helping young people to organise social action projects, working in schools to reach out to children who don’t usually attend youth group nights, and taking youth groups to meet children living in care and allowing them to have the same experience of group nights. Participants in the All Together 2.0 seminars also planned how to ensure the sustainability of their inclusion work by making educational activities on social inclusion that can be shared with everyone.

Also the second edition of Rainbow Resources was developed in the framework of this project!

All Together 2.0 was the follow-up project of IFM-SEI's All Together strategy from 2007-2010, resulting in our inclusion handbook.

Tackling the Culture of Violence

IFM-SEI’s study session entitled ‘Tackling the Culture of Violence’ was held at the European Youth Centre in Budapest in November 2014. It empowered young educators to promote an environment free from violence by raising awareness of its different forms, and reflecting on a culture that deems violence acceptable, hindering children and young people’s access to Human Rights. Discussion focused on bullying, gender-based violence and corporal punishment; three forms of violence that particularly affect children and young people. Participants produced guidelines to identify and tackle these types of violence, how to prevent it before it happens and developed nonformal educational workshops to run with children, young people and other educators to raise awareness of violence and support them in combatting it.

Read the report of the study session, full of tips on how to tackle violence and educational activities.

CooperACTION

The global Co-operAction project in 2013 aimed to promote the co-operative model of enterprise to young people through education, exchange and practical experience of setting up co-operative enterprises in 11 local communities.

Local groups learned about co-operative values and principles, developed ethical business ideas, decided on rules, roles and responsibilities in their co-operatives and started running their small businesses. As a result of the project, we delevoped the CooperACTION handbook in several languages with information, games and educational activities around cooperation and cooperatives. You will also find lots of inspiring examples of the youth cooperatives set up by our groups!

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Volunteering Against Poverty

With this global project we raised awareness on youth poverty and the struggle for decent work by producing educational tools and a thought-provoking and inspiring documentary film. 24 young volunteers from all over the world have been trained in peer education and documentary-making to facilitate local video projects. The local volunteers interviewed their peers on their fears and hopes regarding their working life, talk to experts, employers and decision-makers and developed ideas to fight youth poverty and exploitation.

The documentary is also available with subtitles in German, French, and Spanish. We also developed an impressive web documentary, where you can browse through different interviews, background information and videos.

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