From 24/01/2018 to 01/02/2018 the Erasmus+ Youth exchange GENDERation took place in Malaga to promote and facilitate non-formal education methodologies on gender equity.
"Center for Intercultural Understanding" (France) is the association that organized the project that involved 7 European countries with different gender policies. The project has set itself the goal of making 35 young people of different ages interact and discover more about the main topic. The activities carried out were conducted through a non-formal methodology able to involve and develop new learning techniques, based on workshops, energizers, brainstorming, debates and theatrical performances. The importance of interculturalism has made sure that each country could contribute with its own cultural background, different but at the same time similar to the aspects related to the theme. Through the activities carried out, it has been possible to explore issues such as gender balance, gender equality, feminism, LGBT community rights and gender discrimination. These issues were analyzed taking into consideration five sectors: culture, the working world, advertising, politics and sexual orientation.
From the first moment the youngsters developed a strong team spirit and also treated the topic with a high sensitivity, making their own arguments that very often in today's society are seen as taboos. What struck most were the debriefing reflections that were made every day, both with the team of the Nationality team, but also with the intercultural groups formed.
The workshop led by Rocio and Gema of the Asociación Egeria Desarrollo Social was very important. During this activity the youngsters met and understood the role of women in contemporary society through the analysis of sentences of important personalities. All this has been facilitated thanks to the coordination and active "spirit" of Gabriel Brezoiu, fundamental pillar of all activities.
"Personally I am very happy to participate in this project, it was one of those rare moments when you can focus and analyze the stereotypes and prejudices that people has about gender equality and the role of men and women in the society. It helps you contemplate and rationalize what is happening in the world right now and to see the evolution in recent history and the big step that we took in order to achieve a better gender equality and gender balance. Of course, as I learned from this project, there are still countries in the world where this change didn’t happened and the women are still oppressed and are lacking the basic rights that they deserve. I am a strong supporter of the United nation campaign “He for she” which encourage men from all over the world to fight for the women rights and not just to sit aside and do nothing. Therefore I can say that this project really helped me to “open my eyes” and to be more aware of the social movement that is happening on a global scale and to spread the knowledge learned here with other people."
Aurelian Grigore