Erasmus + “CyberPeace” project successfully finished!

European Association “World-Our Home” ” from 3rd to 9th October 2024 in Rezekne, Latvia organized the Erasmus+ youth worker mobility project – the training course “CyberPeace: Empowering Youth Against Cyberbullying”.

34 participants from 10 European countries participated in the project – Latvia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Croatia, Italy, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania, Czech Republic and North Macedonia. The project was financed by the Erasmus+ program and the Agency for International Programs for Youth Republic of Latvia.

The project was about and around Cyberbullying, which is a very common problem nowadays, especially among young people. Cyberbullying is one form of violence that has emerged with the development of modern technology and social networks and is characterized by behavior carried out by an individual or group through information technology, repeatedly sending hostile, aggressive or degrading messages to harm or cause discomfort to another person or to a group. According to statistics, every third young person tends to experience bullying and specifically cyberbullying at some point in their lives. The effects of cyberbullying on its victims are well known. It affects their self-esteem, academic achievements, can contribute to absences from schools; it promotes violence and can even lead to suicidal thoughts and attempts. Why is cyberbullying dangerous? Cyberbullying happens 24/7. Today, young people are not safe anywhere. This generation is a digital generation and essentially their lives are online. The Internet interferes with all aspects of their lives. For the past few years, we have read stories in the media about the connection between cyberbullying and teen suicides. The good thing is that most tragedies don’t happen often, but it’s very important to take cyberbullying seriously.

This project was created with the aim of promoting the participants’ understanding of cyberbullying and how to identify it, learn about different tools, methods and strategies to prevent cyberbullying in different environments, increase young people’s awareness of the problem of cyberbullying and the importance of joint efforts in solving this problem, gain knowledge about peace, conflict management and safe internet, as well as building new partnerships with youth organizations in Europe.

The goal was achieved and the participants gained new experience, met new European partners, increased the capacity of NGOs, providing youth workers and youth leaders with new skills and competences.

The project was led by competent trainers Līga Siliņa and Ilze Jēče, who guided the participants towards the achievement of the project goal with using different non-formal education methods.

In the project we cooperated also with Eastern Latvian creative service center “Zeimuls”.

Many thanks to everyone who helped realize this project, as well as to the Erasmus+ program and Agency for International Programs for Youth Republic of Latvia for the funding.