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Новини
19 березня 2010
THE IOM PROJECT TO PROMOTE VALUES OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN UKRAINE
On 1 March the project “Promoting Values of Multiculturalism through Living Library Events” was launched in Ukraine, implemented by the IOM Mission in Ukraine in cooperation with the State Committee on Nationalities and Religions of Ukraine and the East European Development Institute.
The main objective of this project is to promote cultural diversity and develop a positive attitude among Ukrainian youth (16-22 years old) toward migrants, foreigners and national minorities in Ukraine. This will be achieved through a nationwide campaign to raise awareness, including “Living library” events and out-of-class activities.
“Living Library” events have already been successfully implemented at schools and universities in Western Ukraine. Within the project framework, such “Living Library”events will now cover the following 12 regional centers of Ukraine: Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donezk, Zaporizhya, Lukhansk, Vinnytsa, Khmelnytskyi, Poltava, Odesa, Kherson, Mykolayiv.
The “Living Library” event is a system whereby the “books” of the “library” are individuals from different social or ethnic backgrounds, and the “readers” of the books are high school or university students. The event serves as a tool for opening dialogue between people, and in doing so provides an informal setting in which to ask questions and discuss stereotypes or prejudices.
The IOM Mission in Ukraine has adopted the concept of “Living Library” from the model introduced by the Danish civil society organization “Stop the Violence” in 2000 (for more details please visit http://living-library.org/the-history.html).
Within the framework o f this one-year IOM project a special Tool-kit will be created for organizing “Living Library” events. This Tool-Kit will be promoted through trainings for governmental and educational bodies, civil society organizations and communities of ethnic and visible minorities to enable participants to organize similar local “Living libraries” with the aim of combating xenophobia and promoting ideas of multiculturalism in their region.
This Tool-kit will include a manual entitled “How to Organize a “Living Library” Event”, adocumentary film, multimedia and other promotional materials (public service announcements, a newsletter “ In the Same Boat”, posters, brochures etc.)
In addition to the awareness raising campaign and promotion of the Diversity Initiative web-site (http://diversipedia.org.ua/), five grants for new micro-projects will be made available on a competitive basis, for NGOs actively engaged in countering xenophobia and racism as to further enrich and expand Diversity Initiative activities on a local level.
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