Fishbowl Youth » International Projects

Democracy Exchange in Italy

Mieke — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 11:45:01 +0000

Title: Democracy Exchange in Italy
Location: Orvieto, Italy http://utenti.multimania.it/artemide/

Description: Participants from the Democracy Project will meet each other in Orvieto, close to Rome. We will get to know each other, build skills to run the project and design the research for the project
Date: 15 February 2010

Planning Meeting in Rome

Mieke — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 11:33:08 +0000

Visiting "Liceo Nomentano"

Moving right along…“Rome and Away”.….an advance planning trip took place in Rome (Italy) between 7^th and 12^th January 2010. Mieke, Catherine and Alan were warmly welcomed by the leaders of the Italian group, Pietro, Marco and Damiano, who are co-ordinating this project in Rome.

With many airports opening and closing due to extreme weather conditions, we were very lucky not to have got stuck in the ice.

The temperature in Rome was 16c with some sporadic rainfall, but with so much to arrange our focus shifted to the work at hand.

Our visit to the Italian school happened on our first morning. We were introduced to the Vice Principle, Professor Gala, who subsequently introduced us to the Principle and English teachers. We then met with the students and received a whirlwind tour of the school mixed with laughter and good humour. The school hosts 1400 pupils and about 70 teachers.here is the link for the school: http://www.liceonomentano.net/nomentano/index.htm#

The students were so enthusiastic that they called us up after school to arrange to meet later the following evening, we already felt like we were making new friends.

Liceo Nomentano, the school in Rome

The visit overall was really good, we seemed to have been in a continueous conversation that was sprinkled with laughter and many ahhaa moments, you know the ones, when the penny drops and you get it, or in planning logistics or aspects of training you have a brainwave and the light goes on, problem solved, ahhaa.

Meeting up with the Italian students was great, they have enthusiasm for this project and have a healthy sense of curiosity. They are fun to be with and enjoy laughter as much as the Irish do. It seems like we’ve already got one crucial thing in common, humour.

Sure were would we be without it, it crosses most bridges, afterall laughter is a common international language.

HEY, OLD FISHBOWLIANS!!!!

Mieke — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:27:08 +0000

Are you interested in being part of an exchange this summer?

Fishbowl is planning to host an exchange here in Ireland. We are looking for volunteers to help out in areas such as:

Cooking
general organisation
transport
etc.

Volunteers are also welcome to leading workshops on personal development and/or non verbal communication, through art, music, dance, film, or acting, so if interested in this aspect… contact us!!!

The exchange will be held in late July beginning of August we will have a showcase of our work in the Scariff harbour festival.

So if you’re up for it or want more information let us know on: info@fishbowlyouth.org

Democracy Project

Fishbowl Team — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 10:29:38 +0000

This project will focus on democracy in schools. During the first part of the project we will focus on researching and documenting (film) the democratic processes in 3 or 4 Irish schools: Scariff Community College, Scariff Youthreach, Woodford Mercy College, the maybe the ALFA Project (if they can start up again next year) and in 2 schools in Rome.

This research will be shared between the two countries, the documentaries will be shown and each group will visit each others schools. Comparisons will be made and added to the research. We will explore the strong and weak points of each system that has been researched and come up with action points for improvement, if this is needed.

Meeting with our italians to prepare the Youth Democracy Project

In the second part meetings between teachers and the democracy group will be organised and together we will work on a common understanding and come up with ideas for good practise. Also peer education workshops will be organised where the democracy group will transfer the skills they learned during the project.
One last evaluation meeting will be organised where the entire project is going to be evaluated and the dissemination process will be prepared.

Human Rights & Arts Festival

Fishbowl Team — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 10:40:28 +0000

Cornered human Rights and Arts Festival

19th-25th November 2007

Fishbowl Youth is organising and implementing a youth festival centred on the One World Week theme: ‘Justice and Power’, and Youth Health / Aids Awareness.

One World Week (OWW) is an international initiative that exists to provide space for people from diverse backgrounds to come together to learn about global justice, to spread that learning and to use it to challenge inequality, discrimination and degradation, locally and globally.

Last year during this week Fishbowl Youth worked with the theme of HIV/AIDS and created a 3D sculpture which looked at the stigma related to HIV/AIDS. This sculpture was then presented at the National Youth Council Ireland (NYCI) One World Week Central Action Day in Dublin.

This year with the help of five European volunteers, Fishbowl organised the “Cornered” Human Rights and Arts Festival in Scariff.

The aim was to facilitate youth to think and work together on the theme of Human Rights and this years OWW theme of Power and Justice. Over a period of six weeks they have given workshops at Youth Reach, The Alfa Project, Mercy College Woodford, EMC Youth Club Scariff, and Scariff Community College, the results were displayed during the festival.

There were several exhibitions around the Scariff, from the 19th till the 25th November:

· Young local artists exhibited their work at Fishbowl Youth club and the Market House

· Photos by Sophie Breuker, taken in South Africa and Turkey were exhibited in main street shop windows

· Brian and Joe’s Coffee Shop hosted Katie Moore’s photos of Nigeria.

· At Youth Reach you could come face to face with a thought-provoking collection of photos of Israel and Palestine.

· Philip Daly’s inspiring pictures of “Burma Action Ireland” were exhibited at the new Scariff Public Library.

Although the festival was youth-driven, the programme still offered interest and excitement to people of all ages. Anyone interested could try their talent at the drumming workshops, get information about the work of Amnesty International, hear local musicians play, discover the human rights through the living statues of Fishbowl Youth.

During the weekend you could learn everything about Fair Trade, and you could join the Mayfield Art group’s two parts workshops or the ‘Breaking through the Wall’ workshop in Youth Reach.

The festival worked with several art forms, from theatre to photography, and from music to movies. There were be a number of short movies, relating to the issue of Human Rights, Ruaille-Buaille dance night and The Acoustic Music evening in a café style setting.

Not forgetting the younger ones, on Sunday the ALFA Project’s students will presented a puppet-show of “Vasilissa the beautiful”.

Everyone was welcomed to come to the Grand Opening with music, poetry and refreshments at the new Public Library on the Thursday22nd November, 6 pm together with Timmy Dooley our local TD and Eleanor Feeley, Youth Theatre Officer.

The project was entirely organised by volunteers, both Irish and from abroad. We are a small youth led organisation, with a lot of enthusiasm and also many years of experience in organising events, we organise seminars, exchanges, work camps and training courses on a regular basis.

There were four Fishbowl people carrying the project:

Firstly Joske Slabbers and Sophie Breuker. Joske and Sophie are the founder members of Fishbowl Youth and have been active members since it was founded in 2002.
After they finished their Leaving Cert, they both went on a voluntary placement, Joske in a film centre in Slovenia and Sophie in a cultural youth centre in Turkey and in a social centre in South Africa. During these placements they gained many skills, which they are now implementing in this project.

Bonnie Boyle has been the motivating force behind Fishbowl Youth since it started, Fishbowl is a youth-led youth organisation, but Bonnie has always been the binding force.
She studied anthropology and sociology in college, and she is an outreach worker for Clare Youth Service.

Mieke Neven McMahon, joined Fishbowl Youth in its second year and has since taken on the International side of the organisation. She has been an administrator for a small school project and has experience in account management for small companies. She is a trained teacher, and a free lance facilitator for Léargas, NYCI – National Youth Development Education Programme, and Glencree – centre for Peace and reconciliation.

We are very thankful for the help of our five European Volunteers:

Metod, from Slovenia; Patricia, from Portugal; Rada, From Slovenia; Sophia, from Germany and Vanda from Hungary….
without your help this project would not have been possible!
!!!!!You did a great job!!!!