Desert Bloom CC participated in “What’s Your Story?”, a Youth Exchange designed to tackle issues such as xenophobia, violent radicalization, extremism and racism through using storytelling as a means of prevention and countering such negative phenomena. The exchange brought together 42 young people from 8 different countries (Greece, Spain, Poland, Jordan, Tunisia, Romania, Serbia and Italy).
Below, is the feedback of some Desert Bloom participants:
Ms. Amany Mustafa
So proud to be among the Desert Bloom team in Athens, Greece from 8th of Dec till 16th of Dec.
This project was the first project for me; I did not expect that this would be such a life changing experience, but it turned out to be exactly that. It was so amazing and helpful. This project encourages me to freely express my opinions about radicalization, violence and extremism. Also, it gave me the chance to make friends from different countries. I am now able to use storytelling to discuss and express.
In addition, it gave me the opportunity to know other cultures and traditions and the most important thing that it gave me was the opportunity to be a very good team worker.
Finally, I created a really special bond with my fellow Jordanian teammates, I can proudly call us a Family.
Ms. Leena Abu Saloum
It was a wonderful experience for me. Thanks to Desert Bloom for giving me this chance to represent our culture to other countries and I hope to have another one in the future.
The name of the project was “What’s Your Story,” and the theme of the project concerned radicalization and extremism, so most of the workshops focused on those topics. The participants in this project were tasked to prepared a presentation about extremism and radicalism in their countries in advance, as well as preparing an interview in the form of a video in which they would ask the respondents questions in accordance with radicalism and extremism.
Workshops started immediately after breakfast, ie. at 9.30am and were lasting until 1pm, including a 30-minute break. The afternoon workshops started at 3.30pm and lasted until 5.45pm. All workshops were dynamic and required the involvement of all participants, or at least a large majority. Staying in Athens and participating in this project have greatly contributed to my non-formal education, first of all because I was able to get firsthand information that I was interested in and related to the topic of the project, but also many details that are in accordance with traditions, history and culture of the participating countries.
