The main aim of the youth exchange ‘Breaking the Glass Ceiling through Media and Social Media’ is to raise the interest of young people in exploring the ways how media and social media are shaping the perception of gender, gender roles and encourage them to question the media and social media presence of gender.

Project Objectives

Objectives of the Youth Exchange ‘Breaking the Glass Ceiling through Media and Social Media’:

– to raise understanding among the participants and participating organizations about the impact that media and social media has on young people;
– to equip the participants with tools that they can use in the process of analyzing media messages;
– to increase knowledge of the participants in the field of gender, a gender-equal society;
– to support sharing good practices between the participant’s organizations in the area working with media, social media, addressing gender;
– to equip the participants with skills needed to create media and social media messages with the aim to encourage them to share their opinions, thoughts and to contribute to creating a gender-equal society;
– to mainstream the lessons learned during the activity through online activities: media challenge, workshops on media and gender, and local peer to peer meetings on media and gender;
– to provide participants an opportunity to create new partnerships and work on ideas for future projects that could be implemented with the support of the Erasmus + Programme.

Working Method

– Learning by doing method
– Ice-breakers and team building games to get to know each other.
– Workshops will leave room for guided but controversial discussions.
– Simulation games, practical work, brainstorming, interactive presentations etc.

Desire profile of participants:

– young people age 18 to 30 who are curious about the topics such as gender, gender stereotypes, prejudices, discrimination, media, and social media and with a strong interest to increase their competencies to analyze media messages, create own media content and contribute to creating gender-equal society;
– open to share their experiences with their peers during the activity and follow up activities;
– to learn more about Erasmus + Programme and be motivated to develop new project ideas, especially new YEs with the support of group leaders;
– to share experiences through visibility and dissemination activities-are able and ready to work in English, to communicate comfortably, to express their ideas, thoughts, to contribute to group work;
– are ready to work on the objectives of the project;
– strongly interested to develop their competencies in the field of intercultural youth work, to increase their intercultural awareness;
– ready to work on brainstorming of new project ideas in the framework of youth work;
– motivated to transfer lessons learned in the follow-up period and to act as multipliers after the activity to increase the quality of youth work at local, national, and international levels.

GROUP LEADERS

Youth Exchange ‘Breaking the Glass Ceiling through Media and Social Media’ will bring together participants from 7 countries, 7 young people, and 1 group leader meeting the following characteristics:

– youth workers, leaders with experiences in the international youth field, with non-formal education based methodology;
– with previous experiences in the field of youth work, Erasmus + Programme, KA 1 – youth exchanges;
– being able to support the participants during the project: to organize and implemented preparatory meetings, to communicate with other group leaders in the process of preparation of the program, to assist participants with arranging practicalities for YE, to support participants during YE, especially to support their learning process and active participation, to organize and to implement evaluation meetings with participants after the activity, to support development follow-up activities in the form of peer to peer meeting. We decided with the partners that there will be no age limit for group leaders.

About Graz, Austria

Graz is the capital city of the Austrian state of Styria and second-largest city in Austria after Vienna. As of 1 January 2021, it had a population of 331,562 .Graz is known as a college and university city, with four colleges and four universities. Combined, the city is home to more than 60,000 students.Its historic centre (Altstadt) is one of the best-preserved city centres in Central Europe.

Graz is situated on both sides of the Mur river in southeast Austria. It is about 150 km (93 mi) southwest of Vienna (Wien). The nearest larger urban centre is Maribor in Slovenia, which is about 50 km (31 mi) to the south. Graz is the state capital and largest city in Styria, a green and heavily forested region on the eastern edge of the Alps.

Graz is also easy to get to by train and coach. Graz is located on the A2 and easy to get to: about 2 hours from Vienna, 4 ½ hours from Munich and 3 hours from Udine, there is direct Flix bus from Bratislava.

The airport in Graz is also known as Thalerhof airport, and is located 10km south of Graz city center. It is a minor international airport in Austria and mostly offers charter flights to European holiday destinations and some city- break destinations. Traveling to and from the airport doesn’t take much time, due to it’s vicinity. There are two types of public transportation lines between the airport and the city center: bus and a train.

In both cases, the price of the ticket for single journey is 2.20 euro, and 1- day ticket costs 4.80 euro.

You can also arrive on the airport in Zagreb, Ljubljana, and Salzburg. On the picture above, you can check the average time needed to reach Graz by bus or metro.

OUR RECOMMENDED ROUTE: CATCH FLIGHT TO VIENNA AND THE TAKE TRAIN FROM VIENNA TO GRAZ

HERE IS THE LINK FOR VIENNA-GRAZ TRAINLINE

Veni Apartment is nearly 3.7 km from Rathaus.

The accommodation is placed within a 10-minute drive from the 1,000 – yar – old castle atop Schlossberg Cave Railway Hill. The centre of Graz is 4 km away. Zum Stern and Restaurant Tafelzimmer with different delicacies are about 400 metres away. Take a few minutes’ cab ride to see the large Stadtpark.

This unit features a flat-screen TV with satellite channels, a seating area and smoke detectors as well as a kitchen. Down pillows and linens as well as showers and towels are included in the rooms. Contact information of the hotel: http://veni-apartments.styriahotelsweb.com/en/

The participants will have 3 meals per day and 2 coffee breaks.

Please, inform us in the application form about your food needs and preferences (fast, vegetarian, vegan, food allergies)!

Budget for travel from Spain is 245 €

NOTES:

The cost given is a limit in total PER PERSON, for both ways.

– Please remember that according to Erasmus+ rules money for travel will be reimbursed according to the real cost you spend, up to the amount given above per country, but not more (which means that if you spend less – you will be reimbursed the money you actually spent or if you spend more – you will get only limit)
– Before buying your ticket, please remember your cost limits, EVERYTHING THAT WILL BE MORE THAN THE LIMIT WILL BE YOUR OWN COST.
– Before booking the flight, please, make travel arrangements CONFIRMATION with us!
– PCR test if needed will not be covered by the organiser

Please note that only public transport is subject to reimbursement. If you travel by airplane only economy class, taxi is not covered. Please consult us!

We need you to buy round trip tickets and send us a copy by email before arriving here, so our accountant knows and adjusts the budget.

We advise you to buy your tickets as soon as possible so that it fits in our limited budget for 100% reimbursement.

We kindly ask you to save all documents (Original tickets, boarding passes, invoices or bills with the ticket price) which are related to your travel, since the documentation background is obligatory for reimbursement.

We kindly please you to buy all travel tickets for both directions – return tickets (plane tickets, train tickets, bus tickets and etc.), because we will be able to reimburse only REAL EXPENSES.

IMPORTANT: We cannot refund any travel costs done by taxi. Reimbursement of travel costs will be done AFTER SENDING your tickets and boarding cards.

Please note if you buy your tickets in a currency other than EUROs, we will convert to EUROs according to the exchange rates from the official European Commission web-site: http://ec.europa.eu/budget/inforeuro/index.cfm?Language=en

Participants must travel from the country of the sending organization, and back. Following the guidelines of the Erasmus+ programme the travel back must be realized by the participants in a direct way within a maximum of 2 days. Contact us and we will assist you or prolong this where needed, only in special cases.

(You have the possibility to arrive in Austria up to 2 days in advance and leave up to 2 days later. The stay for any additional days is not covered from the projects’ budget, and it can be characterized as tourist travel and we will not be able to reimburse your tickets)

IMPORTANT! We reimburse the transport money ONLY if the participant will ACTIVELY take part during the whole project. This is an international project with non-formal education that is granted from European fund. Participants should be aware that they are not on holidays!

Don’t buy your travel tickets before getting our confirmation!

The accommodation is covered in http://veni-apartments.styriahotelsweb.com/en/Graz, Austria only for the days of the activity. In case of longer stays or indirect travelling (holiday travel etc.) there is no chance of reimbursement of travel costs. You are not allowed to arrive after this date, or leave earlier than the date of the departure day. Please keep in mind when booking the tickets. For any other questions consult with the group Leaders form sending ngo.

IMPORTANT: Traveling sometimes requires an additional day for catching a flight and staying for an additional night at the city where the airport is situated. We are aware of such situations, but organizers can not cover these costs, participants should cover themselves.

– Passport or ID
– Travel insurance or European health card
– Please bring clothes according to the weather forecast
– Please bring some nice clothes as well and check the weather channels before arriving
– Personal care products: shampoo, toothpaste etc
– Slippers or flip flops
– Camera, laptop etc.
– Pills and medicines
– Positive attitude

Health and travel insurance

We kindly invite you to make health insurance, especially the participants who aren’t EU citizens. The health insurance is not provided and will not be reimbursed by the hosting organization.

Participants’ Task: You must care for the scheduled time, be kind, respect, be positive, destroy the borders, have maximum fun, be cheerful and try to be part of the solution. Be on Time in the meeting Room always, be respectful and friendly to the other participants. To see a problem and to criticize something is so easy. So do the difficult one and tolerate people always, be a positive example for others.

Team Leaders Task: You must collect and manage your team, share their problems with us kindly, and try to be part of solutions. You are responsible for facilitating at least 2 workshops, to collect and organize travel tickets of the participants, as well as their travel insurances, and to upload to the google drive.

To publish an article about the project on your organization web page. To collect all the boarding passes and send it to us by post.

To prepare at least 3 energizers. To make sure the project aims and objectives are fulfilled, and change the programme if needed according to the learning needs of the participants.

Intercultural evening – Participants are expected to create interesting, interactive and creative intercultural evenings. The intercultural evening gives us a unique opportunity in a creative way to promote your country and culture. Show us what you eat, drink, what are your traditions, music, culture, stereotypes … so prepare yourself to surprise us.

Be aware that there are no kitchen facilities available (don’t bring food that requires cooking).

Bring food, drink, promotional materials and whatever else you want to present.