Euro-Mediterranean
seminar,
organised in Valras, France, from 28 January to 2 February 2005
The Mediterranean region
is one of the most important areas in recent CCIVS history and a major
focus point in its plan of action. Two recent CCIVS General assemblies
took part in Morocco (Bouznika 1998) and the South of France (Nimes 2001),
and CCIVS coordinated several projects on the topic of euro-Mediterranean
cooperation for its members and contacts (including a centralised EVS
project in 2000), with the contribution of the EU, the Council of Europe
and UNESCO programs. Since the evaluation of a centralised EVS project
that CCIVS coordinated in 2000/2001 between France, Italy, Germany, Morocco
and Palestine, as well as an extensive programme in Palestine in 1999,
the participants and the organisations involved have focused a lot on
the importance of training, both for the volunteers and the organisations
involved, in order to enhance the success of this kind of programmes.
Several discussions on how to develop the existing and potential relationships
between the partners in the Mediterranean region took place during the
GA of CCIVS in November 2001 in the South of France. These discussions
highlighted the importance of having a Vice president for this zone, and
of making the development of the actions in this region one of the priorities
in the CCIVS plan of action. The exchanges in the Mediterranean area are
rapidly increasing and the demand for a meeting on volunteers' training
is stressed more and more by the members on all sides of the sea.
More in general,
the recent developments on a political level tending to mix questions
of religion, cultural traditions, youth participation in the various societies
and extremist tendencies confirm us in the necessity to increase the mutual
knowledge of the Mediterranean societies of each other. By properly preparing
and following up voluntary service projects within the region, organisations
can contribute to change the perceptions of each other and to foster intercultural
dialogue among the young people of the countries concerned.
The idea of this
seminar was therefore to profit from the extreme variety of CCIVS members'
activities in the field of voluntary work and international exchanges
in the Mediterranean area, and to put together their different experiences
and knowledge, in order to improve volunteers' training in Euro-Mediterranean
area. The work done by several national organisations and networks that
are part of CCIVS on this topic were shared, enriching each others' comprehension
of the issues treated and the philosophies behind different types of approach.
