At the end of May, we traveled to North Macedonia for the Erasmus+ youth exchange Equal Voices, Equal Choices. Together with participants from Portugal, Hungary, Albania, and North Macedonia, we spent a week engaging in discussions, workshops, and activities focused on gender equality and its portrayal in the media.
After the initial icebreaker activities, we dove into topics that often spark strong opinions and debates today. We explored gender roles, stereotypes, and inequalities, and shared insights into the situations in our respective countries. Although laws and social environments differ from country to country, we quickly realized that many issues are similar regardless of where we come from.
We devoted a large part of the program to the media and social media. We analyzed how the media shapes our opinions, what stereotypes they often reinforce, and why some campaigns are more effective at reaching the public than others. We also drew inspiration from real-world campaigns in our countries that focused on promoting equality and combating discrimination.
In the second half of the project, we had the opportunity to try our hand at being campaign creators ourselves. Working in international teams, we designed our own campaigns focused on various topics related to gender equality (e.g., discrimination in healthcare, domestic violence). From the initial idea through planning to the final outputs and presentation to others, we went through the entire campaign creation process. The result was videos, social media posts, and other creative materials.
In addition to the workshops, we also had the opportunity to explore North Macedonia itself. We spent a day in Ohrid, a historic city listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. During the intercultural evenings, we sampled traditional dishes and learned interesting facts about other countries. In return, our Czech team gave a presentation on our culture.
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