The My Story of Resistance- From exclusion to active particiation was an Erasmus+ KA2 Capacity building project for youth, running between 2021 and 2022.
It involved the exchange of 7 long-term volunteers between Hungary, India, Italy, Nicaragua and Spain, a youth exchange in Hungary and the collection of resistance and empowerment stories and methodologies of youth form minority communities, such as Roma, Gitan@s, Miskitos, Dalits and Adivasis and migrant youth.
The project ran between January 1, 2021 and November 30, 2022, with a 6 months break due to the Pandemic between March and September 2021.
On the 5th of March, 2023, an online project closing event was held where we shared a general overview of the project itself, and held a roundtable discussion with Jeba, our volunteer form India (Student Christian Movement of India), two project coordinators Annabel (FAGiC) and Ram (SCMI) and the main coordinator of the project, Anna. After everyone introduced themselves the coordinators presented their organisations and their work related to challenging discrimination and inequalities in their own contexts. Jeba talked about her own volunteering experiences in Italy with CSD Valdese and especially how she perceived the cultural differences. After Jeba, the coordinators, who all took part in a MySoR youth exchange in October in Hungary talked about the activity and their general impression and learnings about resistance and storytelling.
In the next section, the topic or resistance was elaborated on by the participants, as they share how their understanding of resistance changed thanks to the project, and what new ideas they learnt form the volunteers and the partner organisations.
In the final part of the discussion, take-aways and future plans were on the table: coordinators elaborated on the benefits and innovations volunteers brought to the life and work of their organisations and why they think hosting volunteers form very different cultural backgrounds can be beneficial for any youth organisation. The volunteer also shared how her life changed with this experience and how it advanced her chances on the labor market and made her more open and receptive to other people’s issues.
The meeting ended with presenting the outputs of the project: the elements of the online campaign “My Story of Resistance” consisting of resistance stories of volunteers, youth exchange participants and local young people; the My Story of Resistance Booklet; and the MySoR Toolkit.
You can watch the recording of the meeting here.
Resistance stories of the online campaign:
Ajay’s song
Roma Resistance poem
A Woman and a Bike
The Only Weapon I have Left– slam poetry
Butterfly
We can All Resist
Stitched Together– painting
A Long Way to Find Peace, Harmony & Love – poem
I am Rroma
Across Spaces and Communities
His Strong Story of Resistance
The My Story of Resistance – From exclusion to active participation is an
KA2 Capacity building for Youth project funded by the Erasmus+
Programme of the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are
however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those
of the European Union or the Erasmus+ Programme. Neither the European
Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.