12 April 2019

Youth Exchange - Are we equal ? Gender equality in action, 02.03.2019-10.03.2019, La Vancelle, France

Between 2nd and 10th of March 2019, 6 members of the GEYC Community participated in the Youth Exchange "Are we equal ? Gender equality in action" in La Vancelle, France, which aimed to provide tools for European youth to understand and express through arts, the dialogue about gender equality.




The specific objectives of the youth exchange were:

  • To promote awareness, best practices and fundamental concepts on the topic of gender equality and equal opportunities among young people; 
  • To improve the skills of European youth regarding using art and culture in the field of gender equality; 
  • To increase the social cohesion and facilitate an intercultural dialogue among young European citizens, through non-formal methodology; 
  • To help young people to acquire specific knowledge in the field of gender equality, intercultural, social and communication competences, useful to provide work skills for the participants;



The participants' words best describe the project:

The ’’Are we equal ? Gender equality in action’’ project in La Vancelle, France was what I would call a complete experience of a youth exchange.

"This project offered us a new perspective about gender equality, views and ideas that we never thought about before. It was an amazing experience due to the people we met and the cultural exchanges; Although only 5 countries were represented in the project the participants were coming from 8 countries and 3 continents." 

"We had the privilege of discussing such important topic as Gender Equality with peers that are actually interested in this subject, fact which made the entire exchange of the experiences, of knowledge, of ideas, even more interesting and full of value. We had debates, story-times and conversations from so many perspectives and from the points of view of so many people, cultures even, that it gave the project a rich flavor of uniqueness – which is always good and desirable. We had the chance to ’’taste’’ a little of this topic from so many countries and it is just amazing to discover in how many aspects we’re dealing with the same things, apart from the points that are differentiating us.

This project gave us the opportunity to speak and listen to a professional in Gender Equality work in the Council of Europe, talking about the activity in this domain, about its importance and what should we do on the European and then on a global scale in order to achieve the best position for both men and women in this society.
In this project, we had so many brainstorm sessions, so many discussions and I’ve heard a lot of substantial and relevant ideas on the topic, that I would say ’’wow, that is such a good point, that might actually work if put into practice’’, which I believe is the reason why we have to get the opportunity to speak up more and be listened and noticed more."