From 19-20 April 2010, RUY hosted a conference of a huge geographical scale: Europe-Russia-Asia. People with totally different cultures and backgrounds were given the opportunity to exchange thoughts and ideas about human rights.

Unfortunately, in the end most participants were from Eastern Europe and a few from Asia, because the entire airspace in the Western and Northern part of Europe was shut down due to the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland. As a result, the prep team members of ECYC were not able to attend the seminar. Nevertheless, the participants that were present have had an interesting, useful and fun seminar.

The outline of the week was:

• Teambuilding activities and energizers;
• Training module on human rights education and intercultural dialogue;
• Exploring human rights issues;
• Master class on youth participation;
• Meetings with the Deputy Minister on sport, tourism and youth policy of the Russian Federation, with the Chairman of the Commission on youth and tourism affairs of the Council of Federation, and with representatives of the Council of Europe, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation;
• Discussions about intercultural dialogue, human rights education, youth policy and the role of youth in youth policy;
• Exploring intercultural differences between participants;
• Development of the appreciation of different working methods in open youth work internationally;
• Comparing differences and similarities in youth policies in Europe, Russia and Asia;

Creation of a declaration to the Directorate of youth and sport Council of Europe and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, as a result of their work and to the participants of 5th World Youth Congress.

Written by Ben Quirynen