There are only two weeks at the beginning of our next Erasmus Plus project... "A Pencil, so many Cultures. In Europe, so many Worlds." is a youth exchange project wich aims to involve youngsters, aged between 18 and 25, from different parts of Europe (Portugal, Italy, Macedonia, Finland, Lithuania and Turkey) to reflect about a pro-active approach to participation in democratic life and to the cultural growth of the g-local company. The project wants to breakdown the difficulties that european youngster encounter in overcoming cultural and language barriers and the frustration that young people feel, resulting from the overwhelming pressure from the global to the local and the continuous tension between homogenizing pressures and differentiating pressures - trend that greatly weakens the exercise of active citizenship and the building of collaborative social relationships and pro-active. The project aims to provide theoretical and practical tools to educate young Europeans to a "glocal citizenship" capable of addressing issues of global concern, with the intention of producing a progressive transformation of values, attitudes and behavior so that acting locally is a consequence of thinking globally. Therefore, we aim to make young people playing an active role in decisions that concerns them and more responsible to community life, first of all strengthening a cooperative and rights and duties's commited social interaction. This approach to society should be excercised at every level, daily in their lifes (in contexts such as family, schools, associations, peer groups) as well as, in the long run, in the political participation opportunities offered by European Union institutional framework. We are going to achieve our pourpuse through the use of non-formal education, Theatre of the Oppressed's practices, Comics workshops, using graphic and citizen journalism. The activities will allow the acquisition of soft skills such as critical thinking, willingness to dialogue, mediation and negotiation skills as tools of peaceful resolution of conflicts, being the intercultural dialogue system of value the necessary framework. In this way, the young people involved in the exchange, will break down preconceptions and barriers that disrupt their psychosocial development, will strenght its European identity and will experience new forms of dialogue and constructive cooperation in the name of values such as democracy, tolerance, dignity and reciprocity of human rights.
