Youth Exchange: "GET In Learn Vol.3!"

Gender equality is seen in different ways from each country and culture representing a sensitive topic for a lot of nations. Effectively ensuring women’s human rights requires, firstly, a comprehensive understanding of the social structures and power relations that frame not only laws and politics but also the economy, social dynamics, family and community life in each country. Harmful gender stereotypes must be dismantled, so that women are no longer viewed in the light of what women "should" do and are instead seen for who they are. 
This project is the continuation of the previous "Gender equality through intercultural learning" Erasmus+ project that took place in Estonia and we believe it is important to continue and spread its results in terms of changing the evolution of mentalities and promoting gender equality among young people. This time we will continue this work by involving new communities and countries, so as to multiply the scope of the project and share a culture of gender equality. 

The aim of this project is not to underline the existing gender inequalities, but to analyze and discuss them through the culture and history, to understand why this unequal situation is not as acceptable as young people might think. This work will be especially fruitful by the confrontation with other cultures from Europe, which will help to reflect and put things into perspectives from the participants' societal expectations. It will increase young peoples' awareness by making them reflect the strengths and weaknesses of their cultures on gender roles and gender equality, discuss and learn from each other’s history and cultural realities, in order to break stereotypes, in an inter-cultural perspective. 
Objectives: 
1. Increase awareness and reflect about the roles and status of women and men 
2. Become aware of gender balance situation in other countries 
3. Discover new cultures and particularities of each other in order to break stereotypes and in the same time learn about ourselves 
4. Make the new generation open-minded and create potential future civic activists. 
The Youth Exchange "Gender equality through Intercultural learning_Volume 3" will gather 31 young people, aged 18 to 30 (25 participants plus 6 team leaders without age limit), from 5 countries and will take place from 12-24 October, 2018 (11 days, not including the travel days) in Athens, Greece. 
During the 11 days of the project, young people will cooperate closely, break stereotypes and build a strong team. Participants should be willing to open up to other cultures and different ways of thinking and living, interested in reflecting themselves and learning more about gender issues and interculturality. We will include participants with fewer opportunities from each country. 

Activities will be structured in such a way and will follow strategic steps in order to have the most beneficial outcomes. Gender equality in different cultures will be analyzed and we will figure out how the current situation about gender issues in each country is connected to culture and history. Focusing on the impact of these inequalities, we will find out how they affect the current situation of employment, place of women in labor market and gender stereotypes. A campaign creation (social advertisements, posters and photos) for gender equality will raise awareness in our local communities and participants will also have the chance to enhance their digital skills. 
Non-formal and informal education methods will be used during the Youth Exchange: games, simulation, workshops, debate, outdoor activities, cultural production, meeting the community and making interviews etc. and participants will be actively involved in every one of them. 

The expected learning outcomes of this Youth Exchange are: 
1. Participants will gain tolerance capacities towards others regarding their cultures, way of thinking and living 
2. Increase their cultural awareness and break stereotypes 
3. Develop social and civic competences 
4. Gain knowledge on the existing gender equality issues and discriminations 
5. Change of attitudes and behaviors about socially constructed gender roles 
6. Gain digital competences and practical skills like designer, organizational, working in a team etc. with the production of campaign awareness. 

The project will have a long-term positive impact on participants, partner organizations, local and international communities. It will contribute to make the new generation more open-minded, free of stereotypes and even create the potential future gender activists. Organizations after this project will have new partnerships and will strengthen the existed ones, by building trust and sharing success. Local community of Athens will be also affected as we will highly interact with it. This project will carry on the successful results of the previous ones and be a step further towards gender equality in our societies.

The project is co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of European Union.