DIVERSITY PACKAGE is a resource for all organisation/institutions that work with young people in the sectors of youth work, education and social welfare. The aim of the package is to provide managers and practitioners with contemporary KNOWLEGDE on diversity, ASSESSMENT TOOLS to support their self-evaluation and plan their diversity practice enhancement with the support of GOOD PRACTICE from different fields.

What is the main BACKGROUND of the Diversity revolution package?

Diversity is recognized as a highly important value in the youth field (and much wider) which is supposed to be respected and incorporated in the work of all institutions and organisations that interact with young people. High importance of addressing diversity as an opportunity for learning and not for exclusion and conflict is recognized all throughout EU (starting from the EU motto “United in diversity” and covered in a wide range of EU Strategies). As a result of years of efforts, a wide variety of available instruments, toolkits, guidebooks, articles tackling this topic is available to whomever is interested in diversity (usually alongside inclusion and/or cultural sensitivity), and legislative frameworks of most countries have diversity incorporated in some form as an important value in their strategies regarding youth and systems young people interfere with the most (such as education and social protection). But still, in practice, diversity is respected and „implemented“ partially.

There are three elements that are relevant and intertwined when it comes to fostering diversity on an organisational level (by an CSO organisation, school, social protection institution, or any other organisational unit). These are the context (organisational culture), relationship (climate) and individual (competences) level. Some institutions (such as schools) have the organisational culture (regulations, procedures, practices) that is in place in a way that supports diversity fostering. But when the staff doesn’t have their competences strengthened enough, the overall climate is not supportive and young people in that facility do not feel the benefits of the positive culture. On the other hand, when youth organisations have highly competence individuals as their staff, that supports the positive climate in their activities, but if the organisational culture is missing, the moment there is a staff change, the quality of activities decreases automatically. We do have good practice examples where all three elements are developed and fostered continually, but these examples are more exceptions than the rule.

All participating countries in the consortium (Serbia, Italy, Slovenia), as well as most of others in the region and even in the EU, even with all their current efforts, are facing prevalent issues of social exclusion, discrimination and violence towards those who are marked as different in the dominant culture, and are motivated to empower their young people to learn how to see diversity as an opportunity and not as an obstacle. There is a joint need for free, complete and effective instruments that can support those organisations/institutions interested in fostering diversity on all levels, but that is also needed for those organizations who state they are not interested in diversity at all, in order to spread the importance and the opportunities of it, showing how it is not a waste of time and resources but it provides a lot of benefit from the point of view of organisational and program success.

Throughout the project “DIVERSITY REVOLUTION: From value to practice” (ref.no. 2021-1-RS01-KA220-YOU-000029459), implemented by 4 organisations – CEPORA – Center for Positive Youth Development (Serbia), Institute for Educational Research (Serbia), Associazione Uniamoci (Italy) and Scuola elementare – Osnovna sola Dante Alighieri Isola (Slovenia), we want to support organisations and institutions enhance their fostering of diversity in practice, by helping them view this issue holistically, „find their way“ through possibilities offered to them, so they can navigate towards those enhancement resources that are relevant for their specific cultural/climate/competences needs.

The package is organized in 3 segments – 3 comprehensive publications that will guide your transformation to organisation/institution that has a holistic approach to fostering diversity among youth you interact with.

1. The KNOWLEDGE COLLECTION

2. The ASSESSMENT COLLECTION

3. The GOOD PRACTICE COLLECTION