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S EVEN YEAR S O F CE I P E S

HUMAN RIGHTS WEEK

CAMPAIGN ACTIONS

THIS MONTH:

by Alessandro Imborgia.

Seven years have gone by... Seven years since that day when three young people coming from faraway places, infatuated with Italy and in love with Sicily have come

together, united by the same ideals and the same passions. During these seven years what used to be hope has become a reality, thanks to the will of these people who never lost their willingness and have managed to arrive where many, often too many, fail.

Exactly seven years ago CEIPES was born, the International Centre for the Promotion

of Education and Development, a name that was maybe too pompous at the time we were starting but that is now, more than ever, adequate to reflect and describe what we have managed to accomplish dur-

ing these years.

Today, CEIPES has a gleam of international intervention, thanks to its branches in eight European countries (Italy, Hungary, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Serbia

and Turkey) and this year it has been offi-cially recognised by the Council of Europe as an International Organization. Today, more than ever before, CEIPES does not lose its contact with the territory (…). P.3

NOVEMBER 2014

EVS TESTIMONIALS

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As part of the project ‘Voices of change: Em-ployability, peacebuilding and gender in Europe and beyond’, a youth worker from CEIPES (Italy) had the chance to spend some time work-ing at UNOY Peacebuild-ers (Netherlands) with the aim to exchange know-how and reinforce the cooperation between the two partner organi-sations. In the frame-work of this project the youth worker collaborat-ed in several of the activ-ities implemented by UNOY on the subjects of youth employability, so-cial entrepreneurship for peacebuilding and gen-der equality. The most important dimension touched by this project was the relevance of youth work to the field of social entrepreneurship, with a special focus on the peacebuilding and gender dimensions. So-cial entrepreneurship is quite a trendy concept nowadays and many youth organisations in Europe have it as a stra-tegic priority in their an-nual working plans. Yet, as youth workers we should ask ourselves an important question:

‘whether or not youth work has a real role to play in this field and what kind of role would that be?.’ The role of youth work The experience of this mobility enabled me to take part in a long-term project on social entre-preneurship, involving youth from several Euro-pean and African coun-tries. Due to the com-plexity of the subject youth workers cannot expect that short-term trainings on social entre-preneurship will trans-form young people in social entrepreneurs en-abling them to create their own social venture. While this is an unrealis-tic expectation, it is true however that youth workers have a privi-leged role to play in this field. That role is defined by being intermediaries and networkers, mentors and trainers of specific skills. This role should be nurtured keeping an eye on the holistic dimension of the intervention, meaning that it should be a long-term and local intervention with a spe-cific group.

Therefore my recom-mendation to youth workers is to be specific and realistic, planning interventions and train-ings that address the specific aspects men-tioned. As well do a lot of networking and establish partnerships with local public and private enti-ties with the goal of working in close cooper-ation. Keeping in mind that young people will need support after the training course have fin-ished it is essential to put in place mentoring mechanisms where expe-rienced social entrepre-neurs give support throughout the develop-ment of the ventures.

Peacebuilding I would also like to high-light the relevance of so-cial entrepreneurship for peacebuilding. In the project experience all the social ventures proposed by the participants were aimed at peacebuilding in their communities. But what is peacebuilding? In a world where literature on the topic is so vast it is almost impossible to come up with a concept

THE R OLE OF Y OUTH WOR K : EMPLO YA B I L I T Y , PEACE -BU I L D I N G AN D G EN DER I N EUROPE AN D B E Y ON D by Ana Afonso

WHAT OUR V OLUNTEER S S A Y . . . I came to Italy with my cousin, Burak, so I used to talk with him in my mother tongue. I was a bit quiet when I arrived because I was in a different country, with a different system and very different things. Then I began to get used and everything became simpler. Re-garding the city, I had a plan and I visited most of the historical and famous places in Paler-mo. I tried to learn Ital-ian culture and also Ital-ian language. I tried some typical foods, which I liked. In my work at the school, I used to take care of children with 2, 3, and 4 or 5 years old and I played with them. I also worked in the office, researching how to cre-ate a web radio. Thanks to this EVS I met many people here from different countries, and we have shared our ex-periences and helped one another.

Cagla, 23, Turkey

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S EVEN YEAR S O F CE I P E S by Alessandro Imborgia

(…) conciliating its international vocation and its activities with European partners with a local intervention in disadvantaged urban contexts. Our relation with the Danisinni neighbourhood

and with the institutions that are based in that territory is nowadays consolidated. Moreover, in these past few days CEIPES has been involved in the organization of the fair for critical consump-tion “Fà la cosa giusta”, and has put together a series of activities to mark a week of human rights. In this newsletter you can find infor-

mation about all these events, as well as several others.

A special word of thanks to all the volunteers and collaborators that have contributed and continue to contribute to the growth of CEIPES, they are the real lifeblood of the organization. Meike, Kacem, Nur, Ana, Burak, Cagla, Liliana, Joana, Lelde, Cintjia, Keke, Patricia, Mariana and many, many others. These are all precious, all unique, wonderful people, lifelong friends to whom we address our heartfelt thanks.

CEIPES celebrates seven years, seven years of

success, of ups and downs, certainly seven years of constant change. It is said that the capacity to adapt to change is one of the most obvious symptoms of an organization’s intelligence… well, if that is true, we are genius.

‘HOW’ TRAINING COURSE IN ROMANIA by Inge Arends

From the 25th of October to the 1st of November some members of CEIPES (Irene la Pera, Emanuela Firetto and Inge Arends) participated in a partnership building training course in Craiova, Romania. The topic of the project was about HOW best to manage all the stages of a project and implement them successful-ly. During the days of activi-ties new E-learning methods such as Big Blue Button were discovered, , the pros and cons of E-learning were dis-cussed and a test panel was created. Even though the weather was quite challeng-ing for our Italian partici-pants, they had a wonderful time meeting with the other participants from Georgia, Jordan, Turkey, Armenia and Romania. They shared about the current situation in the different countries and brain-stormed about future pro-jects that could be imple-mented. Here are some quotes from our participants:

Irene: ‘I met great and inter-esting young people from different countries and I hope to cooperate with them in the future for interesting pro-jects’

Inge: ‘I am a big believer in a world of peace and one-ness, this project showed me that no matter where we all come from and what our religious backgrounds are, It is possi-ble!’

In December Emanuela and Inge have attended the 2nd

part of the project in Turkey to discover more about E-learning and have an online training session with volun-teers back in Italy. Will E-learning hold the future?

that is not too broad and that can embrace peace-building in various con-texts, since peacebuild-ing seems to embrace everything that relates to achieving a better society (peace within, peace with the other, peace with nature). It is im-portant to highlight that social entrepreneurship has something to con-tribute to peace building, especially if considered in the context of post-conflict countries or communities in conflict. The first aspect to men-tion is the fact that ven-tures that bring together people from communi-ties in conflict become a tool to bridge communi-cation gaps. On the other hand, social ventures are concrete ways to en-hance economic partici-pation and increase qual-ity of live, what is a posi-tive factor in combating violence and conflict.

Finally, a third possibility is a venture that address-es the factors behind the conflict, ensuring a solu-tion-based approach that at the same time be-comes a source of in-come.

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WHAT OUR V OLUNTEER S S A Y . . .

I worked in the kinder-garten and a little bit in the office. Actually I did-n't like the office work so much, so I will rather speak about the kinder-garten. At the start, it was quite difficult. I thought I couldn’t do it. Because I was a stranger for the children and they didn't know me, I couldn't understand them and they couldn't understand me. But I played with them, helped them and smiled at them. They did the same. I learnt it is enough to love each other. Sometimes there were some problems; sometimes I wanted to speak too much with them. But generally we could communicate. Maybe if the Italian course had started earli-er, it could be easier. And now I miss all of them, I don't want to forget their smile. The best smile. From Ankara to Palermo with love.

Burak. 20, Turkey

WHAT ARE HUMAN RIGHTS? by Patricia Rivera Prieto

After the Second World War, in 1945, the United Nations noted the need that everyone should enjoy funda-mental rights and freedoms, so con-sidering the dignity as a base, Human Rights were proclaimed on 10th De-cember 1948 in Paris. The only pur-pose was that they were respected by all peoples.

Nowadays there is much talk of Hu-man rights, but in reality there is too much ignorance even though they have been around for over 60 years. We should ask ourselves something: are these rights met worldwide? Does everyone know the Human Rights or even his own rights? Are we aware of their importance? Without thinking too much, we would give negative answers to both questions.

To acknowledge their importance we must first understand that every one of us is different but that does not mean that there is someone inferior to another. Regarding this issue, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights says that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights; are entitled to life, liberty and security; no one shall be held in slav-ery or inhuman treatment; all are equal before the law; no one can be banished; have the right to free ex-pression; to seek asylum in any coun-try; to work, to enjoy their free time and education. And likewise, every-one has duties to the community. It is important to know Human Rights be-

cause this is how we can defend our-selves against any abuse; without the knowledge of the rights we could not really ask for justice. Ignorance of rights is largely due to the society which had a wrong idea about what are Human Rights, and the narrow dissemination of them, but the main point is that when they come into force in the country, there is no plan-ning to inform the people what they are and what their purpose is. On the other hand, conflicts and violence have accompanied our societies at all times in our history, it is an evil with which we live with every day and which have not yet learned, despite the many experiences lived (World War II 1939-1945, Cold War 1947-1991, Persian Gulf War, 1990-1991, invasion of Iraq in 2003, War on Ter-ror 2001-ongoing).

So where is the real importance of knowing what are exactly Human Rights? Based on the humanity’s his-tory of violence and in our capacity as individuals with beliefs of "own truths", which often do not want to accept the remote possibility of being wrong, the real importance of know-ing about Human Rights can be de-fined through the knowledge of these instruments of protection for all man-kind, which contain patterns and be-haviour concepts to follow, either in-dividually or and socially, as set out common desires of all societies on the planet.

“Recognizing that peace is the univer-sal aspiration of mankind and that peace and justice are indispensable to the full realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms…”

Proclamation of Teheran, 1968

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CEIPES PRESENT AT FA’ LA COSA GIUSTA SICILIA by Irene Capozzi

This year, CEIPES is ‘doing the right thing’, and thus we were present at the fair for critical consump-tion and sustainable life-styles ‘Fa’ la Cosa Giusta’, which took place in Paler-mo between the 5th and 7th of December. We were present not only as spectators, but putting all our human resources in action at the fair. Our volunteers and train-ees from Portugal, Spain and Turkey have actively participated during the three days of the fair, by providing support to the staff, helping with logis-tics, providing infor-mation at the info points and welcoming the visi-

tors but, above all, bring-ing to the event a multi-cultural touch. Furthermore, CEIPES or-ganized two workshops for kids focusing on the subject of human rights, and in particular on the right to food. On Friday (December 5th) with the workshop “I biscotti del re” (The King’s Biscuits), we aimed to make kids understand in a simple way the reality of ine-quality among the global population regarding ac-cess to food. On Saturday (December 6th) we held our work-shop “L’avventura del ci-bo” (The Adventure of Food), in which we used a

Funny life-size board game to explain to the young players the differ-ent aspects that impact upon the production of to food. The fair was an im-portant occasion to get a general overview of all the different Sicilian forc-es that are driving to-wards sustainable devel-opment and respect for human rights, to raise awareness among the population towards ethi-cal behaviours, respectful of one’s own community, and to invite the people to participate in moments of sharing that have al-lowed exchanges of opin-ion and experiences of cultural diversity.

formed by 7 participants with different backgrounds who voluntarily took part in the testing. The testing phase was followed by an assessment test perfor-med as a questionnaire.

At the end of the testing phase it was important to assess the feedbacks re-garding the accessibility of the platform, easiness of use, quality of the contents, possibility of self-assessment and ove-rall feeling of learning.

CEIPES is a partner organization in athe project IT-Call: Integrated e-Training and e-Stage for People with Physical Disabilities to Work at Ho-me as Call Center Representatives.

During October 2014 we tested the portal it-call.net in order both to assess the capacity of the website itself and to evaluate the educative impact that the training can have on the students. The class was

I T - C A L L T O O L I S N O W A C C E S S I B L E O N L I N E

I N T ERNAT I O NAL DA Y S

15 SEPTEMBER International Day of De-mocracy 21 SEPTEMBER International Day of Peace 1 OCTOBER International Day of Older Persons 2 OCTOBER International Day of Non-Violence 16 OCTOBER World Food Day 17 OCTOBER International Day for the Eradication of Poverty 24 OCTOBER United Nations Day 16 NOVEMBER International Day for Toler-ance 20 NOVEMBER Universal Children’s Day 25 NOVEMBER International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women 3 DECEMBER International Day of Per-sons with Disabilities 5 DECEMBER International Volunteer Day for Economic and So-cial Development 10 DECEMBER Human Rights Day

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would prefer to hold. Some of the people were already aware of the in-ternational observance on November 25th, but most did not know that the date marks an important occasion. We managed to collect interesting photos that can now be found on our Face-book page, in an album created spe-cifically for the activity held on this day.

Orange the World in 16 days

The Secretary General's Campaign UNITE to End Violence Against Women has proclaimed the 25th of each month Orange Day. Among other actions, the Orange Day invites us to wear some-thing orange to highlight its calls for the eradication of violence against women without reservation, equivoca-tion or delay. Our activity ran under the United Nations campaign “Orange your Neighborhood”. It has two aims: firstly, raising awareness of the local community regarding violence against women, and secondly increasing visi-bility of the topic on social networks. Matching the colour of the campaign, for this street action our volunteers wore t-shirts with the word “Basta” written in orange. This year, the UNITE Campaign is extending Orange Day to 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, starting on November 25, International Day to End Violence Against Women, through December 10, Human Rights Day.

On November 25th CEIPES team took to the streets around Palermo with a street action to raise awareness about the International Day for the Elimina-tion of Violence against Women.

This International Day was established by the United Nations General Assem-bly in 1999. This date was chosen in honor of the Mirabal sisters, activists of the Dominican Republic killed on 25th November 1960 for their opposi-tion to the dictatorial regime.

During the morning and part of the afternoon our volunteers walked around in different areas of the city, including Ballarò, Danisinni, Central Station and the University main cam-pus, approaching people to distribute informative flyers about the interna-tional day and asking them to take photos holding our posters with state-ments on violence against women.

The response from the audience was quite positive, as most people showed interest in the cause and were curious to read the sentences written in the posters while choosing which one they

CEIPES TAKES ACTION TO “ORANGE” PALERMO by Ana Silva & Patricia Rivera Prieto

CEIPES HUMAN RIGHTS WEEK 2 0 1 4

Marking the 66th anni-versary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) that is celebrated on Decem-ber 10th every year, CEIPES promoted this year several local and online activities that took place over a week – from 5 to 12 Decem-ber – in order to raise awareness for the im-portance of human rights in today’s world.

The activities ranged from workshops and games for kids to a hu-man rights treasure hunt for school pupils, and were conceived to reach the widest possi-ble audience in order to draw attention to the cause of human rights. During eight days, there were constantly differ-ent activities to mark the week and we have invited everyone to join us in taking action for human rights!

We have contributed to some online campaigns of the United Nations, such as UNICEF’s #IMAGINE campaign. Finally, on Friday (12 December) have launched the Newsletter of CEIPES, with the lat-est updates on our ac-tivities.

Learn more about these initiatives in our web-site.

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HUMAN RIGHTS NINJAS by Mariana Mesquita

We started this journey without knowing exactly what to expect. Neither of us had been already a teacher nor something similar; we were two Eu-ropean volunteers willing to do develop a Human Rights class in Palermo. The classes were devel-oped in Scuola Cuore Im-macolato di Maria, which has a long history of co-operation with CEIPES. Waiting for us were four-teen little ninjas of fourth grade, age of nine.

As a bottom line for the classes we used DUDU –Dichiarazione Universale dei Diritti Umani – a sim-plified version of the Dec-laration for kids created by Amnesty International.

The lessons were divided

Into different main topics where we approached the respective articles from the Declaration. Al-ways based in non-formal education methods, the lessons were prepared entirely by us with the simple recipe of creativity and passion.

Their acceptance to these new foreign girls was im-mediate and the class en-gaged into the subject really fast. Their curiosity, interest and sensitivity for the issues defined the rhythm of the classes. We could not have asked more from these little ninjas. They were com-mitted into each activity and their questions and reviews were surprising and amazingly mature.

The right to be free and equal, the right to be con-sidered innocent until proven guilty, the right to choose a religion or the right to vote, were some of the topics that have been discussed. These lessons were based on the assumption that Edu-cation for Peace can cre-ate generations who be-lieve that human rights and social justice are the basis of our society. Rob-bie, Alessio, Viviana, Emanuel, Francesco, Leslie, Enrico, Anastasia, Marta, Angelo, Shirley, Lulu, Andrea and Alice are getting ready to change this world, and nothing more than “one child, one teacher, one book, and one pen” were need-ed.

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E D I T O R I A L T E A M

ALESSANDRO IMBORGIA

ANA CATARINA SILVA

IRENE CAPOzZI

MARIANA MESQUITA

PATRICIA RIVERA PRIETO