Participate Swaziland – Germany
The project creates an exchange between young people with African backgrounds from Germany and the UK and young people from Swaziland and Ghana; it is a follow-up project of and was developed by participants of the Erasmus+ project ‘Participate’.
Through two visits – one in Swaziland in 2017 and one in Germany in 2018 – the whole group of young people comes together for approx. three weeks to exchange about African identity and history and about opportunities and structures of political participation of young people. The project is primarily funded by Engagement Global.
Objectives of the project
The project aims to empower young people to become active for Sustainable Development Goal 10 – the reduction of inequalities.
This is taking into account the origins of the participants and project partners: Swaziland and Ghana have a history of colonisation and are at different stages of ensuring equality for all people in their countries. In some areas this has been mastered successfully whereas in other areas inequalities persist and are to be tackled. Germany and the UK are countries of immigration for African migrants whom the participants are descendents of. While both countries aim to become multicultural spaces with equal opportunities for all, migrants, and especially ‘visible minorities’ like people with African origins, experience inequalities and discrimination in their daily lives.
The project aims to investigate the potentials of participation of the young people for the reduction of inequalities that relate to the history of colonisation and the history of migration but also to the reduction of inequalities in the society at large, this includes areas such as education, health, political participation, institution building, and community development.
Main goals of the project
- Connect young people with African backgrounds in Germany and the UK with young people from Swaziland and Ghana.
- Create exchanges about history, politics, institutions, justice, political and governmental systems, education systems, opportunities of political and social participation of young people, especially in regard to the reduction of inequalities.
- Thematise jointly the position of young Africans in the world and potentials of their participation in reducing inequalities in their societies.
- Discuss and analyze together how relevant certain categorizations of people are in the respective countries (e.g. categories as a result of colonial history and of patterns of racism and stereotyping), what implications this has on young people, what is being done against this phenomenon and how effective is it done, and what young people can do to work against existing categorizations.
- Bring to the attention of the public (and policy makers) the issues of relevance for young people.
Coordinator:
Farafina Institute e.V.
Contact: claudia.koehler@farafina-institute.org
Partner:
University of Swaziland
