In the beginning of April 2020, the first pilot session under the Building Intercultural Competences (BIC) project is to be held in the city of Athens, Greece. Varna University of Management is a among the project partners in consortium with representatives from 5 other European countries.

The idea of the project arises from the necessity to raise awareness among young people about the importance of intercultural communication and mutual understanding. Compared to the past, the world has become globally open and young people need to leave their usual comfort zone and explore different lands through studying, working and travelling. This creates new multicultural environments on places, which are traditionally monocultural. However, Europe is facing major challenges in promoting social inclusion and cultural diversity as core values that unite the Member States. Building Intercultural Competences (BIC), contract № 2019-1-BG01-KA205-062110 is a two-year European project funded under Erasmus+ Programme, which aims to help young people understand the importance of social inclusion and cultural diversity and build intercultural competences. This will help them overcome potential problems caused by stereotypical thinking, misunderstanding, ignoring other people’s needs.

The partners in the BIC project are from whole Europe, have different expertise and experience to share: Varna University of Management (Bulgaria), Cross Culture International Foundation (Malta), Inter Alia (Greece), Demostene Centro Studi Per La Promozione Dello Sviluppo Umano (Italy), Association for Sustainable Development SFERA – International (North Macedonia), Associacio Check-In (Portugal). Every organisation within the consortium works with young people with different cultural backgrounds, as well as other youth organisations on the international level. Partners’ combined expertise provides the right blend of skills to offer innovative tools for building intercultural competences of young people.

By exploring and sharing good practices and innovative methods and strategies of dealing with the challenges in multicultural environments for youth organisations and overcoming cultural shock, stereotyping, prejudices, discrimination and stigmatisation through intercultural communication and dialogue among young people, the BIC project will promote common EU values. The project will result in creating two interactive online guides, organising six local debates, two piloting sessions and one mobility of young people. The first piloting session will be held on 3 April 2020 in Athens.

For more information, visit the project’s website.