The action is part of the Wahda project, which seeks to strengthen Tunisian civil society for the defense of civil and political rights and social cohesion.
From 5 to 8 October 2021, the Solidarity Foundation of the University of Barcelona is co-organizing in Tunis (Tunisia) a training seminar on the Wahda project: Strengthening Tunisian civil society for the defense of civil and political rights and the promotion of social cohesion to advance the management of the Covid-19 crisis, the country’s political transition and regional stability, of which the Foundation is a partner.
This project aims to strengthen the role of Tunisian civil society (especially women and youth) for the defense of civic space through the protection of civil and political rights and the promotion of social cohesion.
SocioSports meetings and Participatory Action Research
Of Wahda’s actions, the UB Solidarity Foundation leads the one related to strengthening social cohesion and community resilience of young people at risk of exclusion in Gran Tunis and Bizerte. To this end, two actions are designed and implemented:
- The SocioSports meetings: methodology based on cooperative (non-competitive) physical activity to facilitate peer-to-peer interaction between young people at risk of social exclusion and university students. The goals are to help empower youth, combat stereotypes and prejudices, lay the groundwork for mutual recognition, and promote social inclusion. It is a methodology used by the University of Barcelona for 25 years, with the participation of more than 8,000 students of the Faculty of Education and about 8,000 people from different groups (people with health problems, refugees…).
- Participatory Action Research (PAR): a methodology for both research and social intervention to document alternative narratives of young participants (university students and young people at risk of social exclusion). The PAR allows participants to identify structural and conjunctural elements that affect social cohesion, equal opportunities and gender equality, and to detect spaces for participation for social transformation.
Training seminar in Tunisia
The current seminar aims to train the people who will implement the SocioSports meetings and those who will develop the PAR. Initially, it was to take place in Barcelona but, due to the pandemic context, it was moved to Tunisia.
This training, eminently practical, includes the development and execution of four SocioSports meetings, in which the facilitation teams of the University of Carthage (UCAR) and ADO+ (the first platform dedicated to adolescence in Tunisia) can live in the first person the application of the methodology with university students and young people at risk of social exclusion. Likewise, the seminar will allow the people in charge of the PAR to define the topic and approach of the research, as well as to identify qualitative indicators and strategies for gathering information.
Wahda project
The Wahda project seeks to improve Tunisia’s democratic governance, with a gender and a regional perspective, within the framework of civil and political rights constraints justified by the COVID-19 crisis.
Wahda is coordinated by NOVACT, with the support of the Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation (ACCD). Other partner entities are the University of Carthage (UCAR) and the Tunisian League for the Defense of Human Rights (LTDH). The Tunisian association ADO+ and the Catalan associations Superacció and la Rotllana are also taking part.
A project of:
Supported by:
