Call for Participants: Youth Peace Camp 2023

Deadline: 1-Apr-23

Applications are now open for the Youth Peace Camp a flagship activity of the Council of Europe youth sector on promotion of peaceful and inclusive societies.

The Youth Peace Camp project was born in 2003 in the framework the programme of the Council of Europe’s confidence-building measures and has been providing a unique opportunity for young people from conflict-stricken regions to meet and understand the process of transforming conflicts.

During the camp the participants follow an experiential learning process and acquired competences in the fields of peacebuilding, intercultural learning, dialogue and conflict transformation, within a human rights framework.

In 2023 the camp will take place in Strasbourg and its programme will be designed in line with the review of the Youth Peace Camp methodology based on the outcomes of the consultative meeting on Renewing Peace Education in intercultural activities which took place in January 2023. The consultative meeting put emphasis on ensuring peace education with a holistic approach that encompasses attitudes, knowledge, and skills related to tackling conflict and violence. The need of including practical steps in peacebuilding and peace education was also underlined, such as engaging young people in peace processes, advocacy, promoting diversity, and building alliances through international collaboration.

Aims

The Youth Peace Camp engages young people and youth organisations from conflict affected regions in dialogue and peacebuilding activities based on human rights education and intercultural learning during and after the camp.

Objectives

The objectives of the 2023 Youth Peace Camp are:
- To develop awareness and basic competences (knowledge, skills and attitude) of participants in human rights education, peacebuilding and intercultural learning to enable them to engage in dialogue and confidence-building initiatives with other young people affected by conflict;
- To support mutual learning from experiences of conflict and coping strategies;
- To foster relationship building as a foundation for peacebuilding and dialogue;
- To introduce and share existing youth work practices and experiences of young people working on dialogue and conflict transformation in their home communities
- To motivate and support participants in their role as multipliers and peer leaders in peacebuilding activities with young people encouraging them to implement follow-up initiatives;
- To strengthen the role of the Council of Europe, in particular through its Youth for Democracy programme, in peacebuilding and intercultural dialogue with young people and to support the approaches of the UN Security Council Resolution 2250 on Youth, Peace and Security and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Eligibility Criteria

Profile of participants
- In 2023, the camp will bring together groups of young people from:
  - Cyprus (Greek-speaking and Turkish-speaking young people)
  - Kosovo, with a focus on Albanian and Serbian communities,
  - South Caucasus, in particular from conflict-affected regions and ethnic communities
  - Both banks of the river Nistru/Dniestr.
- All participants must:
  - Be aged between 18 and 25 years (with possible exceptions up to 30 years old);
  - Be able to work in English;
  - Be available and fully committed to take part in the Youth Peace Camp;
  - Be curious, open-minded, appreciate diversity and ready to learn about each other’s realities;
  - Be motivated to learn and to apply the values and approaches of the Youth Peace Camp, notably human rights, democracy and peacebuilding;
  - Be motivated to implement youth initiatives for peacebuilding following the camp;
  - Possess a sense of responsibility for one’s own actions, a commitment to personal and community development and continue the engagement with other participants;
  - Preferably be involved in an organisation or network, institution, formal and/or informal group that is ready to support them throughout the project duration and afterwards when implementing youth initiatives for peace building.
  - The group of participants should be balanced and reflect the diversity of their communities. The total number of participants and facilitators expected will be 40-50, with an average of 4- 5 persons from each community present.
  - The Council of Europe welcomes applications from all candidates who fulfil the profile above, irrespective of gender, disability, marital or parental status, racial, ethnic or social origin, colour, religion, belief or sexual orientation.