You can download the PDF presentation of the project here.

Follow all the news of the project on its blog : http://blog.fdh.org/hemispheres

Because marginalization, poverty, discrimination and submission experienced by the majority of the inhabitants from southern countries are not disconnected from the situations lived by many Europeans. Because the local initiatives can be shared at an international level by associating our hemispheres, some European associations want to implement Hemispheres, an action-training project not only aimed at understanding the interdependences between situations in the North and in the South, but also at promoting mobilizations that can lead to social changes. You live in Europe, you are between 18 and 30, you speak “international” English and you are interested in international solidarity, come and participate in Hemispheres.

Hemispheres is an action-training which gathers European young people.

It is training because within a group of 20 European young people during three weeks, you will be able to:

• clarify and have a better understanding of some of the mechanisms that generate poverty, exclusion, discrimination and disregard of human rights both in North and South
• discover mobilisations and positive energy of people who make things change
• learn artistic and technical knowhow (to organise international solidarity consciousness raising actions). For instance: how to lead a public debate, to collect people’s speech and opinions, to create an exhibition, to write an article, to build a website, etc.
• create within a multicultural group, one or several educational tools which aim to sensitise as many citizens as we can. These creations will be the support for the activities you will implement back home.

It is action too because when you go back home (in your town, with your sending organisation for instance), you will be able to implement in a real situation an international solidarity consciousness raising event. The educational tools, the knowledges and the methods gained during the training will help you for that.

To be involved in Hemispheres means to participate in the 3 weeks training then implement an international solidarity consciousness raising activity/ event, accompanied by your sending organisation.

Where? How?

The 3 week-training takes place in Paris, where you will be hosted close the city centre. Weekends and evenings (to be checked with the group) are free and you can make the most of your stay in Paris. The project is granted by the European Union, which allows a complete care of training fees (pedagogical, accommodation and food costs) and travel tickets (on a second-class trip basis).

From 5 to 24 April: What makes your car move? When maize doesn’t feed men but cars.
Food riots have recently made the news’ headlines around the world. Everybody wonders : “how is it possible to be hungry in a world where agricultural techniques and production have improved so much?”. This training session will give some answers to this question … by asking other questions: what about the access to the land, global warming, differences between country and city ? To summarize: what do we produce, what for and at who’s expense? Key issues for the future of humanity.

From 2 to 22 August 2009: Earning a living...What does one earn by working?
The drifts of the consumer society drive to more and more massive and violent exploitation forms of workers. This scoffs their rights to decent wage and working conditions and to social welfare. For the ones who don’t have work at all, poverty is coupled with other marginalisation aspects. Because most of people have to work to face the fundamental needs (food, housing, education, health…), but also because work can generate collective utility as well as individual recognition, this training session will tackle the issues of the right to work and labour rights as major challenges in the fight against poverty, oppression and marginalisation.

From 8 to 28 november 2009: Information: a way of fighting poverty?
Everywhere around the world, poverty and exclusion mean denial of fundamental rights which prevents poor people from participating in the construction of fair solutions. The fight against all the forms of violence is indivisible with the recognition of the most basic rights. Information allows us to have a better knowledge and understanding of the issues that we (in the North and in the South) face every day. Moreover, building one speech, acting in favour of population’s active participation in public policies formulation are major challenges of the fight that needs to be led to build a fairer world.

Please feel free to contact us for any information about Hemispheres.

This project is conducted with funding from the European Union.