Jewish Organisation: Intercultural
Jewish Organisation: Intercultural
Jewish Organisation: Intercultural
Jewish organisation
develops tools for
intercultural
dialogue
Education helps. Young people, adults, teachers are the
key to understanding and respect in our future Europe.
Jewish and Muslim people can be enemies but also
partners with a common religious and historical basis,
and shared experiences of discrimination. Dialogue and
understanding between both communities is therefore
essential. CEJI tries to give tools to an Inclusive Europe.
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CEJI has been involved in diversity education for over ten years. Working in
partnership with the U.S.-based AntiDefamation Leagues A WORLD OF
DIFFERENCE Institute, CEJI offers
short and long-term trainings, trainthe-trainer and program development
opportunities created to develop respect for diversity and the skills to succeed in multicultural societies. CEJI has
also developed two subject-specic
training modules to address particular
social needs: religious diversity and
gender/homophobia. All programs are
adapted to various national contexts
and to the needs of the target community. The actual programs are Religious
Diversity and Anti-Discrimination
Training; and Fruitcakes: Tackling
Gender-based Discrimination and
Homophobia.
SCHOOL-BASED AND YOUTH
PROGRAMS
A signicant proportion of CEJIs educational work is carried out in schools
and with young people through the A
CLASSROOM OF DIFFERENCE
and Peer Training Programs, a diversity
training process and curricular resource
designed for schools to enable them to
be better prepared to meet the challenges of a multicultural school community. The programs, which have
reached more than 25,000 young people in Europe since their introduction
ten years ago, are implemented in
schools in four European countries by
national co-ordinating organisations:
IRFAM and AGORA in Belgium,
ARES in France, Intercultural Alliance
(ICA) in the Netherlands and Oltreilponte in Italy.
Peer education is a great tool for the
young inuencing other young people,
but it also has a snowball effect on
adults and social sectors surrounding
the young. Not only that, but the youth
can develop projects that have a direct
impact on wider social conditions if
only given encouragement and opportunity by adults and institutions supporting them. This is why CEJI planted
the seeds for EPTO the European
Peer Training Organisation to grow
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W H AT I S A D U LT E D U C AT I O N D O I N G
ship does not operate in a vacuum, neither is the school environment operating in isolation from the rest of the society. This why during the next two
years CEJI will be piloting a community-based initiative across ve EU countries that brings a variety local stakeholders, including from the neighbourhood school as well as local youth,
public authorities, social workers, business owners, and others, together for a
process of diversity training, needs
analysis and action planning. We are
hoping that the exchange of points of
view across a variety of sectors within
a very localised neighbourhood will
help mobilise resources and cooperation to improve conditions for all. This
is another form of intercultural dialogue.
PARTICIPATION IN EDUCATIONAL
NETWORKS
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trans-national levels within Europe; increase the visibility of and empower existing Jewish Muslim initiatives; and initiate and promote new opportunities
for dialogue and co-operation between
Jewish and Muslim communities.
The dialogue approach is particularly pertinent to relations between Muslim and Jewish communities, which
have been greatly affected by the volatile political situation of recent years.
Jewish and Muslim people nd themselves not only as perceived enemies
but also as possible partners with a
common religious and historical base
and shared experiences of discrimination. Fostering dialogue and understanding between both communities is
therefore essential.
The Platform grew from a one-year
Jewish Muslim Dialogue project,
launched by CEJI in late 2005 and supported by the Ford Foundation and the
European Commission. The project
compiled national mapping reports
containing information on partnerships, initiatives and best practice in
the eld of Jewish Muslim dialogue
and produced these reports for Belgium, Denmark, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
The mapping reports were released
at a European Conference on JewishMuslim Dialogue, which took place in
Brussels from 1517 April 2007. This
event celebrated the many successful
Jewish Muslim dialogue initiatives taking place in local communities and provided an opportunity to share experiences and good practice for over 70
Jewish and Muslim participants from
ve European countries. A major outcome of the Conference was a Declara-
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ADVOCACY AT A EUROPEAN
LEVEL
CEJIs project activities are underpinned by European-level advocacy
work aiming to promote a Europe that
is respectful of its diverse citizenship
both by promoting the positive strategies to create it, such as the inclusion of
diversity education in school curricula
across the EU, and by confronting that
which prevents inclusion such as institutional discrimination and hate
speech. Both aspects are crucial in the
context of a surge of support for extremist right-wing views, bringing racism, islamophobia and antisemitism into mainstream European politics
(Council of Europes Commissioner for
Human Rights, November 2006), coupled with a notable rise in antisemitism
on the left of the political spectrum
(UKs All-Parliamentary Inquiry into
Antisemitism) and the increasing vulnerability of Roma to racist violence
and crime (Chair of the Board of the
European Monitoring Centre on Rac-
loads of the various publications associated with the project, can be found at
www.ceji.org/acodden/ced.php).
CONCLUSION
People must be prepared to live successfully within diversity and to engage
in effective intercultural dialogue.
Whether young or old, a local
shopowner, a school teacher or a high
ranking public ofcial, we must have
the will, the attitude, skills and opportunities to make intercultural dialogue
work.
This is the role of Education, lifelong education, the combination of life
experience and training that can and
should take place throughout the various sectors of society.
In this context, CEJIs aim to provide a Jewish Contribution to an Inclusive Europe is more relevant than
ever. Moving ahead, CEJI now aims to
inspire more people and organisations
to actively join us in the pursuit of inclusiveness in all sectors of European
society.
ROBIN SCLAFANI
KATY NICHOLSON
CONTACT
Ms. Robin Sclafani
Director
CEJI - A Jewish contribution to an inclusive
Europe
Avenue Brugmann 319, B-1180 Brussels
E-mail: [email protected]
Tel: (32 2) 344.34.44 / Fax: (32 2) 344.67.35
CONTACT
Ms Katy Nicholson
Communications Ofcer
CEJI - A Jewish contribution to an inclusive
Europe
E-mail: [email protected]
http://www.ceji.org/
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