Our Youth Exchange Erasmus+ project “Youth on the front line” is aimed at young people (18-28 years old) from countries that took part in the Great War on the Italian front and from a group of Ukrainian boys who are currently living the experience of war.
The aim of the project is to raise awareness among young people about the importance of Peace, Democracy and respect for Human Rights by investigating what war is and what young people know about it. Because of the conflict in Ukraine, a topic as far removed from everyday life as war has jumped to the headlines. This has renewed the interest in this theme among the young people of our association who, having had the opportunity to meet some young Ukrainians in other exchanges, wanted to address this theme together with them to listen to their stories and their experiences from their own voice. The idea of the project is to ideally combine present and past. In fact, Treviso is located very close to the places of the Great War and next year will mark the 110th anniversary of its beginning. This project aims to take inspiration from current events and collect the stories of the past to talk about the EU of the future. A future that, thanks to experiences of sharing and mutual knowledge such as the one proposed with this project, we hope will be a future of peace.
The Great War was the first fratricidal conflict of modern Europe that today, more than a hundred years after those events, must be remembered to prevent our continent from falling back into similar errors due to the resurgence of nationalisms based on aggressive attitudes and prevarications towards the different. Such behaviour is contrary to European values and is therefore harmful to democracy, respect for human rights and peaceful coexistence, which are the founding elements of our common European home. “United in diversity” is the motto that the EU gave itself at the time of its foundation and, in more than sixty years of history, it has been able not only to guarantee peace and prosperity by uniting and including all European citizens, but also to create and form the consciences of the new generations. The work of creating the consciences of future generations cannot fail to pass through the continuous exercise of collective memory and the creation of a shared memory based on lived experiences to ensure that the past does not return. In this context, mobility projects at European level are a great opportunity not only to build a shared memory but also to educate young people to the importance of Peace, to the rejection of war, to the centrality of the values of tolerance and respect.
The project does not want to be only an attempt to create a bridge between different cultures and countries but also a bridge between centuries and different generations by establishing an ideal connection between the young people of that time called to the front in the dramatic events of those years and the young people of today of the same age, called on this occasion to return “to the front” in order to become aware of what happened. The Great War is an event that changed the history of Europe and that indelibly marked its destiny. In the light of today’s conflict, which has brought war back to the European continent, it is essential that today’s young people know and reflect on the events of the past and that they do not lose their memory so that the same mistakes are not repeated in the future. Memory, which is heavily absent in our society, is the protagonist in our proposal through a series of activities that aim to enhance the stories of those who lived that event which, if on the one hand are indications of courage, altruism, extreme sacrifice, on the other hand they reveal examples of attachment to life and warnings about the uselessness and horror of war.