Bridging the Gap

EEE-YFU, in partnership with the European Federation of Intercultural Learning (EFIL) , International Cultural Youth Exchange (ICYE) , Service Civil International (SCI) and Erasmus Students' Network (ESN) , organised the Bridging the Gap seminar between 13-21 September 2009 in Mollina, Spain.

Bridging the Gap brought together participants from three sorts of long term exchange schemes: secondary school, university, and volunteer exchanges from YFU, AFS , ICYE, SCI and ESN. The aim of the seminar was to exchange experience and understanding between the participants about the various kinds of long term youth exchanges, how they understood recognition, what the stakes were for them, as well as to look into the process of recognition and how organisations who deal with long term exchanges could work towards furthering the recognition of long term youth mobility.

For the volunteers and staff this was a great opportunity to learn more about the topic of recognition, especially from the viewpoint of the different perspectives of potential partners from other exchange organisations. For EEE-YFU Member Organisations, this seminar was an opportunity to contribute to the long term advocacy work of EEE-YFU in the field of recognition. Participants were also enabled to return to their organisations with a better understanding of how organisations can work at the national level to further this issue.