Sicily was chosen historically as a place of transit, everybody’s and nobody’s land. For centuries, different people have settled here with their cultures and their history: the Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs, Normans, Spanish… One after another have left their mark and have gradually established today’s Sicily. Palermo was thus the place for groups of people coming from different Mediterranean countries to reflect together on the notions of complex and present such as identity, religion or cultural diversity.
And it was just in Palermo where the Training Course “PRISM” (Politics and Religions In Shores of the Mediterranean sea), funded by the Youth in Action, took place last week. This meeting was designed as an initiation for creating a sustainable network of cooperation on political and religious issues in urban contexts in the Euro-Mediterranean area.
The eruption of the volcano in Iceland made that many aeroplanes couldn’t take off, so unfortunately some participants coming from Sweden, France and Bosnia couldn’t arrive to Palermo and therefore were not able to represent their countries at the meeting.
Despite this misfortune, the meeting was a success. For one week, participants from Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Israel, Bulgaria, Malta, Palestine and Italy have worked together through various non-formal education activities, presentation of studies of different countries, debates, networking and theatre of the oppressed.
The perpetual intercultural exchange and the mutual understanding of people from the Euro Mediterranean region were the main basis to achieve the results expected from the project.
