Intercultural Navigators aims to develop groups of young leaders in Europe who can easily ‘navigate’ within and between different cultures – who are aware of their own cultural backgrounds and who are able and open enough to accept, respect and understand other cultures.
The project was launched in 2008 in eleven countries in central and northern Europe. It is a large-scale project that will be organised in partnership with a diverse group of institutions and experts working in the area of leadership development and intercultural literacy from the UK, Europe and Africa.
The young participants will be able to contribute to issues such as the:
- relationships of communities of people who have been dispersed from their original homeland with their home and receiving countries
- movement of people between new and old EU member states
- the roots of radicalization
- relationship between ‘fortress’ Europe and Africa in the face of future waves of migration.
To help young leaders successfully engage in these international issues the British Council will organise training in leadership skills and cultural relations. The young participants will also have the opportunity to take part in international attachment programmes in public and non-governmental institutions and the business sector.
The British Council and its international partners will also encourage the young people to develop their own initiatives by providing training in project management and fund-raising – and will supply investment for the best projects to be initiated.
EUROPEAN SURVEY ON YOUTH MOBILISATION
Until May 2009 the British Council in the Czech Republic, together with eleven other European countries, will participate in the European Survey on Youth Mobilisation. It will explore social and political activities of 15 to 30 year-old young people in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.
The survey is a part of the Intercultural Navigators project dealing with the challenges and opportunities in a changing multicultural world. The aim of the project is to develop a network of young people in Europe, who appreciate their own cultural background as well as respect and understand other cultures. They are young personalities who easily navigate among and within different cultures.
It is an aim of this project to examine the similarities and differences in patterns of youth mobilization, recruitment and action across these various extra-parliamentary and extra-liberal movements. Through the use of a comparative study the project explores political and social mobilization along six conceptual strands: religious fundamentalism and extremism across Europe; ethnically based social and political mobilization, both within Diaspora and immigrant communities; ‘radical right’ quarters; ‘radical left’ movements including workers’ organizations, anarchists, and anti-globalisation group; environmentalist radicalisation and activity; and finally specific radical social and political mobilisation i.e. radical gay movements.
It is not an assumption of the ESYM project that youth radicalisation is normatively ‘bad’, nor would it be a recommendation that ‘radicalisation’ must be stopped. Challenges to the mainstream European political societies regarding the treatment of racial, religious and linguistic minorities, of women, of homosexuals, of children, and of workers have all helped to build a stronger and more dynamic European polity. The project seeks to provide a forum for those who feel otherwise marginalised to speak about their community and their social relationships both within and without it.
The main research partner is the School of International Relations, University of St Andrews, Scotland, which is renowned internationally for the high quality of its teaching and research and has the oldest centre for the study of political violence in Europe. The partner collaborating with the British Council in the Czech Republic is the Masaryk University in Brno. Its students and researchers will be conducting the survey in the Czech Republic.
The main output of the study will be a research report ‘A Framework for Understanding Youth Radicalisation in Europe’, which will be presented in autumn 2009 and will provide a valuable tool for understanding youth radicalisation and minimizing the potential for political violence.
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