This Erasmus+ youth exchange project entitled “Peace & Youth” will be attended by 25 participants (4 young people plus a group leader) from 5 different countries for a period of 5 days.

The goal of this project is to raise awareness among young people on the issues of Peace and War, offering them an educational experience that makes them able to understand the reality that surrounds them and to become peacemakers in their daily lives. The project aims to make participants more aware of the importance of Democracy, the active participation of citizens in democratic life and diplomacy, making them reflect together on past and present issues related to conflicts and their resolutions.

For this reason, the project will take place in 2025, 80 years after the end of World War II, in the small town of Ceprano, in Ciociaria region, very close to Monte Cassino, the location where one of the bloodiest battles of World War II took place.

In addition, with the aim of making participants understand the importance of knowledge of the past to be able to interpret the present, a Ukrainian informal group will also participate in the project, giving all young people the opportunity to reflect on the theme of War and Peace starting from the experiences lived firsthand by Ukrainian youths. This will help both young Ukrainians to open up and share their thoughts, emotions and experiences with other peers, and other participants, having the opportunity to listen to eyewitnesses about the current situation and daily life of a country at war.

In addition to the informal Ukrainian group, young people and associations from Italy, Poland, France and Austria will participate in the project, so as to include in the project some of the countries that took part in the Second World War and whose soldiers fought on the Cassino front on both fronts.

The project was born from the request of some young people who actively collaborate in the development of our associative activities and who come from the Ciociaria area, who have shown, in conjunction with the anniversary of the end of the Second World War, the desire to make their territory known and enhance its memory, comparing their knowledge and ideas on the theme of Peace and War with other young people from other European countries. In addition to this, the project collects the request of the young people themselves to be able to discuss the theme of Peace and conflict resolution, being able to count on first-hand experiences lived by Ukrainian participants, so that the project does not focus only on the past but starts from the past to deal with a theme, that of Peace and War, which is essential nowadays and with which young people from the EU come into contact on a daily basis through the media.

This project therefore responds to the need of young people and the desire of the associations involved to create, through a youth exchange, a tool for mutual knowledge and comparison useful for participants to learn about the past, understand the present and be able to face the future in the best possible way.