The European Union’s Programme

13 OF THE EU SOCRATES PROJECT

Intercultural Dialogue and communication

for Adult Learning

(IDCAL)

The duration: Start 15/12 2001, Till 31/12  2003

•  The focus of the project was on the experiences with dialogue over cultural, political and religious borders, the partners have very good qualifications for discussing this matter: in the Gaza strip within the scope of an armed conflict and apolitical crisis and in Hungary within the scope of a situation where a big minority (the roman /gipsies) is working for better cultural, political and social conditions.

How the project contributes to the overall objectives of the European commission’s strategy on lifelong learning.

The partners have all made their own experiences in working with an intercultural dialogue in their own countries, which are all multicultural societies. Both in the Gaza Strip and in Hungary the fight against racism and xenophobia has been strong and lasting.

In the Gaza strip the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis has built an atmoshere of hatred and hostility , and the gap between the two groups has been widened and deepend ever since the war in 1967.  the Palestinian partner in this project  samira fadel the founder and director of The New Abraham Center for Languages, as it is also called, the Palestinian folk high school, has since the opening is 1995 struggled to be a meeting place for both Palestinians and Israelis.  It must be said though, that it has often been a problem to host courses for Israeli participants, both for formal reasons( Israeli closure of the border) and for security reasons.

In Hungry, in the small city of Sopron, Judit , Ronai the founder and director of the central European folk Academy, has established itself as an important institution for lifelong learning.  From its very beginning this Academy has sought to transfer the experiences from Nordic folk high school to a Hungarian context , and has tried to make contact with marginalized groups such as the gypsies, by brining  this minority into the project , the project will focus on one of the most discriminated groups in Europe, a group which living conditions have been grown worse since the falling of the different communist regimes.  Hungary has one of the biggest population of romanies (gipsies), and therefore it is specially important for this country to deal with this group in a fruitful way.

The Delegates:

• Samira Srur (Director)
• Ashraf Hamdona ( Accountant)
• Subhi Bahlol ( Hebrew teacher )

Represent: The Abraham Center, Gaza

• Judit Ronai (Director)

    Represent The Central European Folk
Academy,Sopron, Hungary.

• Arild Mikkelsen (Director)

Represent The Nordik Folk Academy, Gothenburg,Sweden.

• Mr. Johanni Larjanko.

EAEA ( European Association for Education of Adults).