That became clear after the conclusion of the project. It took two years (from March 2016 to February 2018) and many experiences into working, educational and family contexts, it came out that using methods of community mediation really help in solving critical situations. Besides, what has to be reminded is that Community Mediation is first of all a way of life than merely a method.

The participants started their work from the analysis of the needs and the necessities of the communities they went to visit. Then, after building a strong connection and acquiring a direct knowledge of the surrounding context, they set their goals and objectives.

A complete toolkit is available on the CoMedY website. Here below the working methods.

Development of local projects:

“The participants could be roughly divided into two groups: youth workers and coordinators of the partner organizations, and young volunteers. The first explored the Community Mediation methodology and tried to understand how to apply it in the different local contexts, both during the Training Courses and through study visits in Latin America. Volunteers of the European Voluntary Service underwent a preliminary period of volunteering in their respective sending organizations and local communities. At the same time, they received baseline training on the Community Mediation approach in order to contribute to the implementation of a Community Mediation-inspired local project (…) The Portuguese representative went to Mexico, the Italian one to Argentina and the Spanish referent went to Peru.”

This way, it was possible for all the participants to acquire the right working method, adjusting it to the specific needs and necessities of the locals. That was crucial for the whole Community Mediation concept: to understand the social parts involved in the critical situation and to make them main actors of the decision making process is in fact the pivotal part of the mediation.

Training courses:

Then there was the involvement of stakeholders, plus two representatives for every participant organization. For the European, the training courses took part before the departure, in order to get familiar with the concept and the methods of Community Mediation and to be able to put them properly in place, being already familiar with the approach.

Final evaluation:

Eventually, the final evaluation represented a great tool to get an overall idea of the results of the project, the efficiency of the methods, the impact either on the participants and on the EVS volunteers that took place to the exchange and, in the end, to reflect upon what was left after the project had ended.

For a more specific description of the project and its tools, here you will find the complete toolkit, with a complete overview of the main notions and concepts for a correct approach to the Community Mediation.

L'articolo CoMedY: Community Mediation as a tool proviene da Youth Networks.

The main goal of this Capacity Building was to apply the practice of community mediation to the youth active participation. The idea arose from the fact that the community mediation method had never been used before, while it perfectly fits the youth work within the Capacity Building projects.

Community Mediation consists in the prevention and management of conflicts through the involvement of local communities in the decision making process. The CoMedY Project allowed then the participants to go see how the different local communities worked in the countries that were part of the project – Italy, Portugal, and Spain for Europe; Argentina, Mexico, and Peru for Latin-America. The Community Mediation can in fact provide new tools for a better linkage between the local communities and the development of new policies.

As it’s written on the CoMedY website, Community mediation is defined as: “The practice connecting community members, within the community and with the community’s means. In Community Mediation, the civil society – made up of individuals, families, associations, NGOs, and entreprises – gets involved in an attempt to self-manage its own conflicts. Its aim is to acknowledge the skills communities possess, not only to trigger a sense of responsibility, but also to manage existing differences before these may lead to violent conflicts” (Bonafé-Schmitt e Dahan, 1999, in Domínguez and Conforti, 2016).

All of this implies then a reconnection with the territory, enabling the parts to be aware of the needs of the actors involved: by doing so, it leads to a more pacific way of conflict-solving. There’s always a mediator, whose task is to find the links and common points between the parts. His role is to enhance the communication, in order to make it possible to live in a multi-cultural contest. This latter is precisely the field of youth active participation within the Capacity Building activities. Non-formal education plays also a role here, as a fundamental part of the learning process – as well as turning it into a best practice.

The project was designed and coordinated by the association P.E.CO. – Progetti Europei di Cooperazione, with the support of AssMedCom – Associazione di Mediazione Comunitaria for logistics and methods and took place between March 2016 and February 2018.

L'articolo CoMedY: the capacity building for intercultural mediation proviene da Youth Networks.