Prejudices, racism and discrimination still form a crucial concern in modern European societies with young people being reported particularly vulnerable. In the “Multiple discrimination & young people in Europe” report, conducted by the European Youth Forum, 77.1% of the young respondents reported that they have been discriminated against on the basis of one or more grounds.
Unconscious biases are a great concern as root triggers of discrimination, influencing young people’s emotional and rational responses in everyday situations. This affects their choices and behaviors and resulting in discriminatory practices and invisible racism, subtle and not easily recognized manifestations which usually remain unresponsive, producing negative effects for their peers.
LIGHT’s goal is to bring improvements in youth work’s responses to unconscious biases and invisible racism, contributing to the fight against them and advancing EU society’s inclusiveness.
Specifically, LIGHT project aims to:
- develop innovative & tailor-made youth work tools to make the problem of unconscious bias and invisible racism, visible;
- increase youth workers’ ability to effectively work with youngsters and organize qualitative, targeted, attractive and inclusive youth activities on the topic;
- promote bias literacy both among youth workers and young people and increase their ability to recognize and question their own biases;
- raise youngsters’ awareness on invisible racism and unconscious bias and increase their ability to effectively respond to them;
- promote union values and familiarize young people with unbiased and non-racist behaviors.
Activities
- Organization of a creative workshop to involve youth workers, young people and experts in discrimination, bias and racism field and non-formal learning experts in discussions around the topic and the chosen non-formal methodologies.
- Development of an attractive and innovative thematic digital tool to raise awareness, sensitize and familiarize young people and the public with unconscious bias, invisible racism, unbiased and non-racist behaviors.
- Focus groups with young people, experts in the field, researchers, youth workers and psychologists.
Results
- The LIGHT toolkit for youth workers, including introductory information on the topic and the chosen NFL methodologies, non-formal learning exercises, roleplaying and Theater of the oppressed scenarios and Storytelling exercises on the topic and relevant Youth work experiments.
- Unconscious bias tests highly useful for both youth workers and young people to help them identify their own unconscious bias
- The LIGHT one stop corner being a valuable youth work tool for non-formal learning and awareness raising on the topic
- A targeted MOOC to facilitate youth workers’ training on the topic. It will be composed of no. 5 e-learning modules delivered as study texts with assessment quizzes at the end of each module and an e-badge certification at the end The modules will be about unconscious bias and invisible racism, project methodologies and practical application of the produced youth work tools.
- A youth activity scheme, proposing a best exploitation plan of the project’s results.
- An awareness raising pack, consisting of 10 videos and interactive stories on the topic.
- 125 youth workers and other professionals involved in non-formal learning and organizing youth activities, will participate in the supported capacity building cycles and will be trained on the topic, the chosen methodological concepts and the application of the project’s results.
- 150 young people will participate and be benefited by the youth activities and will contribute to the awareness pack development with the stories that will create and the videos that will be recorded.
Partners
- Coordinator: Ligue Internationale Contre le Racisme et l’Antisémitisme, France
- KMOP – Education and Innovation Hub, Greece
- Centro per lo Sviluppo Creativo “Danilo Dolci”, Italy
- CWEP – Stowarzyszenie Centrum Wspierania Edukacji Iprzedsiebiorczosc, Poland
- Stichting Radio La Benevolencija/Humanitarian Tools Foundation, Netherland
