DayCul - Act Daily Think Interculturally, Cyprus

The training activity took place

in Lefkosia, Cyprus

organised by Politistiko Ergastiri (The Cultural Workshop) with the support of Youth in action programme Action 4.3

19 - 26 October 2011

Reference person

Salvi Greco

(co-trainer)

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Aims & objectives

The training course aims at developing the intercultural competencies of youth workers and leaders in organizing international youth projects through exploration of cultural diversity beyond simulations, from a perspective of real everyday life and use of it as a tool to discover identity (become aware of your own culture so that you can open to others who are different). Therefore it aims at:
- Developing participants' knowledge and competence in key concepts of intercultural learning through exploration of cultural diversity from a perspective of everyday life;
- Challenging participant’s capacity to use very different cultural environment as a tool to discover identity;
- Acknowledging among participants the importance that influence of culture has on person’s perception of reality, everyday behaviour and identity.
- Introducing participants with the approaches and activities of intercultural learning and possibilities to adapt it to their local contexts and realities.

Target group & international/intercultural composition of the group & team

24 Youth workers or Youth Leaders working with intercultural dialogue and learning coming from Cyprus, Denmark, France, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia and United Kingdom.

Team of trainers:
Salvi Greco, Italy
Panayotis Theodorou, Cyprus
Milena Lazic, Serbia

Training methods used & main activities

The training course followed non-formal educational methodology based on experiential learning using a participative and learner-centred approach with a special focus on approaching Cultural Diversity from a perspective of differences in day to day life. In specific, participants were exploring Religion, Traditions, Food, Music, Languages, Nationalities, History, Communication patterns, Relations, Time, Jokes, Fashion, Personal culture, Relation towards other cultures, Power issues, Gender and Sex, Roles in society and all the other things that shape our everyday life (behaviour, identity, beliefs, values and rules) and all of them are deeply rooted in our culture.
Furthermore, unique feature of this training course is a use of Photovoice method where participants are asked to represent their point of view on culture and intercultural dialogue through live interaction with local community by taking photographs, discussing them together and developing narratives to go with their photos.

Outcomes of the activity

Participants achieved to:
- understand the multiple forms of culture and intercultural dialogue through exploration of cultural diversity from a perspective of everyday life;
- stimulate and challenge themselves to use very different cultural environment as a tool to discover identity;
- discover and acknowledge the importance that influence of culture has on person’s perception of reality, everyday behaviour and identity;
- take initiative to create activities and projects on intercultural learning for the local contexts and realities;
- create an interactive learning and reflection group of youth workers that will afterwards lay the foundations for future international cooperation in Youth in Action projects.

Your tasks and responsibilities within the team

I had a role of a trainer, meaning that I was responsible for design, implementation and evaluation of the training program.