Thirty-five participants came together in Baia Mare, Romania, on August 5th for a week-long youth conference on the topic “European Consciousness through Action for Peace.” The youth, most between the ages of 15 and 25, came from Romania, Switzerland, Germany, UK and Hungary.
The program began with icebreakers and ground rules and expectations. It included presentations of partner organizations; sessions on identity in Europe today; several workshops on peace and conflict resolution; a session about reconciliation; open space programs; an introduction to spiritual activism; a session about youth networking; action planning; evaluations; and study visits to the town and region.
Among the plans generated for follow-up actions were the following: a project for Romanian-Roma friendship; projects around helping orphans and cleaning-up the environment; a project for spreading positive news via Facebook; and activities for finding volunteers to support existing interfaith activities. A handbook with tools for Action for Peace will be produced and disseminated.
Partner organizations included: Children for Children - Children for Peace in Romania; Zentrum der Einheit Schweibenalp in Switzerland; Magyarszágért Európában Egyesület in Hungary; and URI UK and URI Germany. The program was financed through the EU Youth in Action Programme. URI Europe also gave a small financial contribution. The idea for the training came from the URI Europe Assembly 2010 in Istanbul, and was organizers and trainers included URI-Europe Regional Coordinator, Karimah Stauch, and URI Global Youth Leadership Program Coordinator, Matthew Youde.
