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THE ASSOCIATION THE INTERETHNIC EDUCATIONAL YOUTH CENTER The Association the Interethnic Educational Youth Center (IBZ) was founded on December 27, 2000. The NGO started its activity in the summer of 2000 with the renovation project of a historical monument known as the House with the Wooden Roof from Sighisoara, building that now houses the organization. The IBZ is a project of the German government, financed through the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations from Stuttgart, through the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe. Since 2003, the Association has been financing its activities through its own hostel, restaurant, bar, German Language courses, live concerts organized in the Music Pub and through an Internet cafe. Its youth hostel, The Burg Hostel offers 54 places in 18 rooms and represents an optimal accommodation solution both for camps and trips for pupils and students, and for tourists. Sighisoara was chosen because of its multiethnic and multicultural character. Mutual understanding and tolerance are the fundaments of harmonious co-habitation of the many ethnic communities—this idea was the basis of starting the Association the Interethnic Educational Youth Center. The objective of the organization was to provide a space of interethnic harmony and tolerance as part of the multicultural Romanian space, and the most efficient tool in reaching this objective was youth education. From the beginning, the organization structured its activity in three main directions, locally, nationally, and internationally. Locally, the Center supported the cultural and artistic life of the German, Hungarian, and Roma communities, as well as that of the Romanian youth. Young people from Sighisoara of different ethnic backgrounds spend time and work together through German and English language classes, computer, traditional dances classes, exhibitions, seminars, events, trips, festivals and shows. In 2005-2006, more projects on local level have started at IBZ, among them worth mentioning: the Alternative Youth Club and the Radio Project. The two projects were drafted and have been implemented for and by the young people in Sighisoara. The first gathers young people in the music-pub, where they have the possibility to play on different music instruments, the second – learning everything about a radio studio. Nationally, the ProEtnica Festival “The Days of the Ethnic Communities in Romania” represents the most important event of its kind in Romania and South Eastern Europe. The six editions of the festival between 2001 and 2005 have proven that ProEtnica is an important contribution to the right to cultural identity of the ethnic communities in Romania and abroad. Every year, the festival has brought together hundreds of representatives of the following ethnic groups: Albanian, Armenian, Bulgarian, Czech, Croatian, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Jewish, Macedonian, Polish, Roma, Russian-Lipovan, Ruthenian, Serbian, Slovakian, Tartar, Turkish, Ukrainian and the Vlachs Community. Also on national level, in 2005, the IBZ organized an autumn camp for young people belonging to the German community in Romania. Internationally, the IBZ organized many projects, and among them the ETNO ART project, the European Week, where young people from Germany, Portugal, the Czeck Republic, Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania took part. Early 2006, the IBZ took part in an international conference, where was put the foundation stone of a partnership for a project implemented by the Educational Youth Centre in Waldmunchen, Germany. |
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The Association
the Interethnic Educational Youth Centre Bastionului Str. No. 4-6 Tel. +40 265 77 84 89 Fax. +40 265 50 60 86 E-mail:info@ibz.ro |