Such great 4 days at CSI Cross-Sectorial Conference in #Istanbul Turkey! Around 55 participants from 25 different nationalities. I met participants from across Europe and beyond, from places like Palestine, Russia, Armenia and many more amazing group of people enormous amount of dedication to community development and social justice.
I found the first couple of days challenging as I discovered very quickly there will be language barriers although the Conference was in English at times I found myself struggling to understand what was happening however , this is only presented itself as a problem for a very short time one of the organisers jokingly suggested that the language of the conference Is not English but rather “Global-ish” once I conditioned my mind to that way of thinking I was able to make connections and exchange ideas and best practices
One of the things that all participants from 25 different countries from the poorest to the richest parts of Europe and beyond agreed on was “that the time has come for formal education to be restructured” . There were conflicting ideas and ways in how to do this participants from Turkey suggested all establishments that provide formal education should be closed down and young people told they are free to do what they want, as enticing as that may be for a young person I think completely doing away with formal education would not be the way to go.
The conference provided a platform to exchange ideas and enabled me to share some of my experiences of working with young people for 20+ years, I look forward to future project collaboration with some of the participants.
Ms S.M.Gedi
