This project give us the opportunity to have a great experience in a youth exchange which is held in Marrakesh, Morocco with 35 participants from 7 countries: Greece, Romania, Spain, Morocco, Poland, Tunisia and Sweden.
Nowadays, one of the major questions in our societies is how to deal with difference and diversity? Because of this, the theme of this youth exchange was ”Diversity hurts?” a theme which will take the participants in immersing themselves and analyzing the layers of their identity, analyzing how identities interact in a society through intercultural learning and develop advocacy strategies to promote tolerance. During this project, our whole perspective about diversity has changed.
It is well-known that we all live in a more and more globalized world in which we can hardly find our cultural identity and the more globalized the world is, the harder it becomes for us to have a personal view point and express our beliefs, our culture, our background. That is the reason why we believe that intercultural dialogue is the perfect tool to enhance the spread of our identities so that the other people will know more about us as we are, regardless of all the stereotypes kand misconceptions. For example, when we arrived in Marrakech and met the other participants, we was overwhelmed by the idea of communicating with so many different people who maybe will not be able to understand us, but in the same time we was eager to express ourself and share more about our identity. So the first barrier we have to overcome when starting a dialogue with somebody from another culture is our shyness. We was pleasantly surprised by the warmth of the other participants and their open-minded attitude, which made us feel more comfortable in sharing our culture with them and learning more about theirs. We found that Moroccan cuisine it`s a real pleasure, the food was spicy and colorful, with more mix of vegetables and meat.We really enjoyed it. We saw more differences between the Moroccan culture and our culture, so this experience made us more open-minded. The Moroccan people are nice, very friendly and trustful. This experience made us feel lucky, because we had the opportunity to be there, and made us more rich with new friends, new knowledge and a new perspective.
We believe that communication is possible at any level and between any cultures. Acknowledging our differences, through a “unity in diversity” motto, we can definitely reach not only an intercultural dialogue, but also enrich ourselves.
“Diversity hurts?” project is one of the best experiences in our lifes and we are sure that we will take part in another youth exchange.
Claudiu Sulea