Tolerance - Acceptance - Peace

The AEGEE Yearplan Project for 2005 "Tolerance - Acceptance - Peace" is a project that focuses on different aspects of conflicts, linking them with on-going conflict situations in Europe and through this integrated approach brings young people to discussions and finding possible ways of building sustainable peace on the continent.

Recent developments in the world show that intolerance, discrimination, impatience to each other, inability and unwillingness to listen to the other side lead to more and more conflicts, destruction and sufferings around the world. Europe is not excluded from this trend, having 38 conflicts of various scopes on the continent with 47 countries.

AEGEE, European Students' Forum is a real example of Europe without borders and prejudices. During years of mutual work our members gained great experience of open-minded cooperation for one goal - European integration. We strongly believe that it's the high time for young people to unite their efforts and contribute to the peace initiatives.

Our association focuses on the four main Fields of Action: Active Citizenship, Cul-tural Exchange, Higher Education and Peace and Stability. AEGEE brings together European students of all study disciplines with activities such as international conferences, seminars, exchanges, training courses and case study trips, giving the possibility to analyse a broad variety of contemporary problems from a European point of view, and discuss them with different experts.

In the past, several very successful projects within peace and stability pillar took place. In 1999, "Peace academy" was a project that which followed the aim to create a strong basis for a peaceful world of tomorrow. 25 AEGEE antennae plus several working groups have collaborated to analyze conflicts and consider ways and tools of preventing them.

Starting in 2002, "Turkish Greek Civic Dialogue" aimed at fostering relationship between NGOs in Turkey and Greece, reinforcing them by providing the opportunity to develop and organise partnership projects, while combating prejudices and stereotypes towards each other.

One year later, AEGEE aimed at alleviating the Israeli-Palestinian? conflict by supporting and encouraging intercultural dialogue between Palestinians, Israelis and Europeans within the project "PIE - Palestinians-Israelis-Europeans".

The "Tolerance - Acceptance - Peace"-project consist of a series of conferences, seminars and discussions which intend to explore roots of aggression, violence, prejudices and linking it to the current developments like terrorism, wars, and conflicts of various scopes. The general aim of this set is to look for solutions from the young people's point of view to conflict situations, through exploring psychological and historical backgrounds of those and developing ability to react in most constructive way.