Approaches to intercultural learning in a globalised world:
How to strengthen the local impact of voluntary service organisations in Eastern Europe.
Organised in Lviv, Ukraine, 15-19 November 2007.

The three day training took place in Ukraine, and was hosted by Alternative V, one of our member organisations.

It was embedded in a context of various trainings and seminars on cultural diversity since 2005 and a number of seminars on regional cooperation between the EU and Eastern Europe and within Eastern Europe since 2003.
In view of the European Year on Intercultural Dialogue 2008 the training had two major objectives:

Deepen the concept of Cultural Diversity in order to improve the way intercultural learning is transmitted within youth exchanges and voluntary service projects in Eastern Europe and the programme countries;

Bring together organisations from Eastern Europe and the programme countries in order to exchange good practices on the subject and strengthen the knowledge about each other and thus facilitate future partnerships and better cooperation between the present organisations.

The training developed a number of proposals for follow up projects to be implemented in 2008 and beyond. The intercultural learning of participants was strengthened both through the content of the training, which explicitly focussed on intercultural capacity and the fact of spending time with participants from other countries. Many exercises but also the time spent together outside the official program contributed to a new and more complex vision of their own culture and the culture of the other participants.

Report of the seminar