I am tolerant, you be too!

Project „I am tolerant, you be too!“ ran from September 2008 – December 2008. Sillamäe Society for Child Welfare created the project and Estonian Gambling Tax Fund financed it. The purpose of the project was to promote openness towards multicultural society among young people and give them an opportunity through formal and nonformal education address different existing issues and search for solutions for them. To help young people overcome false pretences and stereotypes of different cultures and their representatives, To discuss critically on the topic of European Citizenship and find outlets for active citizenship. To conduct intercultural learning and enable young people find common values and feel the need for cooperation with neighbouring countries. The overall purpose was to aid normalizing the relations between Estonian and Russian speaking youngsters and increase mutual trust.

 

a)      4 seminar-training courses in Tallinn and Ida-Virumaa.

b)      A Conference in Tallinn

c)      A study.

d)     A toolkit

Among the participants were Estonians, Russian speaking Estonians and Slovenians, Russians, Chinese, Georgians and others. Different experts from different fields were invited to present at the training session, among them Nikolai Degtjarenko, Mustamäe City District Vice Head, former member of Tallinn City Council: „Intercultural Dialogue and Integration in Tallinn politics“ that helped to bring specificity and practicality to the sessions. The program also included workshops and more theoretical presentations. A small educational documentary movie was made and was presented at the international conference. A study was conducted on youth attitudes towards interracial and international relations and questions of integration – the results were presented at the conference.

Project succeeded in bringing together the representatives of different fields and viewpoints and in creating a joint constructive idea exchange forum, with the purpose of advancing positive attitudes towards multicultural society and raise problems that need to be solved. It is especially positive to note that young people of different nationalities took part as one of the main purposes of the project was to bring out youth role in advancing intercultural dialogue. Young people are increasingly more involved in the society and are becoming an active influential force. Young people and youth organisations have an increasingly larger role to play in combating intolerance and raising awareness of prejudices and stereotypes and their negative effects. The project in question was conducted by people under 25 and therefore found it essential to encourage and support such initiatives. Project included 157 people.