13. Youth Cross-cultural Harmony Academy (YCHA)

This form is filled according to Youth Solidarity Fund 2009 Application Guidelines:

http://www.unaoc.org/images/application%20guidelines%202009%20ysf.pdf

September 30, 2009

1. Your Organization

•Name of organization: Youth Global Harmony Association (YGHA) as the youth department of Global Harmony Association (GHA).

•Overall goal: We aspire to pave the realized way for a harmonious civilization by the global harmony projects, harmonious education and cross-cultural dialogue at all levels: global, regional, national and local.

•Members - type and number: international, about 30

•Key areas or work: peacemaking, peace culture, education, cross-cultural dialogue, science of social harmony

•Year of creation: 2005

•Average annual budget (in US$): 5,000 – 7,000

•Headquarters’ location (city, country): St. Petersburg, Russia

•Phone number: 7 – 812 – 513-3863

•Fax number: 7 – 812 – 513-3863

•Website: www.peacefromharmony.org

2. Project Coordinator Contact Information

•First name: Ivan

•Last name: Ivanov

•Position in organization: Youth Global Harmony Association (YGHA) President

•Date of birth: January 18, 1985

•Gender: male

•Email: ivanov.ivan.spb@gmail.com

•Phone number: 8-960-286-61-80

3. Project Overview

•Project name: Youth Cross-cultural Harmony Academy (YCHA)

Note. Please, do not mix two similar abbreviations: YGHA and YCHA, which designate DIFFERENT subjects: the first is the organisation, and the second is the educational institution.

•Timeframe - start date and end date: November 2009 – May 2010

•Location of activities - city(ies) and country(ies): St-Petersburg, Novosibirsk and Chelyabinsk in Russia; Minsk in Belarus; Calcutta in India; Buenos Aires and Trelew in Argentina; Maribor in Slovenia; etc.

•Category of grants - Small grant OR Large grant: Large grant

•Total amount requested in US$: 30,000

•Exchange rate used:US$1 = 30 in local (Russian) currency

4. Project Objective(s)

State the overall objective(s) of your project. What do you want to achieve? The overall objective of our project is to create the first international Youth Academy of Harmony which will focus o­n preparation of students of the last year, graduates of universities and the young specialists with specialization of school teacher, to make them capable to organize and to teach the classes which can harmonize consciousness, thinking and behaviour of pupils as the future actors of the constant intercultural and interfaith peace dialogue o­n a base of harmony as the uniting value of the most different cultures and religions, excluding enmity and violence. Harmony is a general and uniting value of the most different cultures and religions.

Our objective in the SMART criteria:

Specific: harmonious education for children and youth,

Measurable: number of the young people who have got harmonious education,

Accountable: simple and clear,

Realistic: high

Time bound: has the beginning but has no end. We wish to find the harmonious educational tools which is fostering since childhood a strong mutual respect, deep scientific understanding and long-term positive harmonious relations between people of different cultures and religions.

5. Analysis of the Problem(s) or Issue(s)

Describe the problem(s) or issue(s) the project aims to address. Why is this project necessary?

By the reason of increasing migration of human resources and the population St.-Petersburg (about 5 million people) as well as other large cities of Russia and other countries face a becoming aggravated problem of racial, national and interethnic enmity. Because of this the number of murders and violence constantly grows in St.-Petersburg and in other large cities of the world. The deepest reasons of this enmity are family and school education, which is based o­n traditions of racial, national and interethnic confrontation and absence of the general and uniting cultural values. Our project offers unified harmonious education both for indigenous population and for migrants o­n the basis of the general cultural value of harmony. o­nly such education is capable to solve this deepest problem in perspective. Therefore our project is necessary and has to be realized with inevitability. The question consists o­nly in time.

6. Project Activities

Describe the activities you will implement to address the stated problem(s)/issue(s) and reach your objective(s). How will these activities help you reach the project objective(s)?

The YGHA activity for achievement of the project purpose:

1. Selection of a youth international team from 15-25 teachers and experts for St.-Petersburg’s Youth Cross-cultural Harmony Academy in Russia.

2. Preparation of the training program for this team o­n the bases of harmonious thinking, education and intercultural behaviour.

3. Preparation, translation into the basic languages (English, French, Spanish, Chinese and Esperanto) and the publication of the small manual o­n bases of harmonious thinking, education and intercultural behaviour.

4. Preparation, translation into the basic languages (English, French, Spanish and Chinese) and the publication of YCHA project.

5. Holding of a week training of this team in St.-Petersburg o­n the bases of harmonious thinking, education and intercultural behaviour.

6. Regular holding of the harmonious education lessons in o­ne of interethnic schools of St.-Petersburg and in o­ne of its Universities.

7. Realization of the item 1, 5 and 6 in large cities of other countries: India, USA, Argentina, Belarus, Greece etc. at the expense from other sources.

7. Target Audience

Who are you targeting in your activities? How will you select participants? How will you ensure gender balance? What is the total number of youth you are planning to reach/involve?

- The target group of our project are the young graduates of universities, first of all pedagogical o­ne, which YCHA will prepare in harmonious education and also students of the schools, with whom the YCHA graduates will spend studies/lessons.

- We will select the project participants o­n special system of criteria for teachers of harmonious education (har-teachers). The basic criterion is a direction o­n tolerance, respect and harmony, excluding enmity and violence, and also mastering by a complex of corresponding knowledge in philosophy, sociology and psychology.

- The gender balance is o­ne of key requirements of harmonious education. In our project it is ensured approximately with equal number of women and men in the YCHA team.

- We assume, that in our project for 6 months we will reach/involve about 150-250 young people from the target group as each of the 15-25 graduates of our Academy will conduct lessons, at least, with 10 pupils of interethnic schools of St.-Petersburg.

8. Sustainability

How will you ensure sustainability of your project’s results and impact? We plan to find new sources of financing in the course of realization of this project to maintain its development, continuation and expansion not o­nly in Russia but also in other countries the next years. It is the o­ne aspect of our strategy. Another aspect consists in transforming of the YCHA into commercial self-supporting educational institution that will ensure to it a stability in the future.

9. Match with UNAoC Priorities

How does your project contribute to the UNAoC priorities? What is the value added of your project? Why should it receive funding?

- The YGHA priorities and its educational project completely coincide with three of four priorities of the UN Alliance of Civilizations (UNAoC): youth, education and migration. We also are aimed “to promote understanding and reconciliation among cultures globally and, in particular, between Muslim and Western societies.” We also aspire “to moderate”, and in the future to overcome, their “during times of heightened cross-cultural tensions, polarization and mutual fear” through the o­ne harmonious education equally necessary and appreciable for them.

- Our project adds a new value of harmony in these priorities. Harmony is the most ancient value of the mankind, all cultures and nations of the world. But in the split world it was marginalized. However, the new interconnected global world demands harmony as a key condition of a survival, peace, consent and prosperity for all nations and cultures o­n the Earth. Therefore, our project should receive financing under the Youth Solidarity Fund. Moreover, we believe that this project can become o­ne of a new key long-term projects for the UNAoC globally and receive the strong support in all aspects.

10. Outreach to Marginalized Youth

Will your project reach out to marginalized youth? How? - Our project is focused o­n two marginalized youth groups: young graduates of universities, who often is the unemployed, and children and youth of migrant's minorities.

. We are aimed to solve their problems through harmonious education, which gives to the first group new professionalism and helps the second group to overcome the intercultural barriers.

11. Monitoring & Evaluation of Impact

What type of monitoring and evaluation methods will you use? - We will use social statistical monitoring in corresponding indices and also quality standards.

- We will evaluate our project upon completion in the same indices and standards.

- The basic method is the special statistics which is presented in the corresponding statistical tables and forms, which express results and impact of our project.

12. Partner(s)

Do you have partners in this project? Who are they? What is their role? Will they receive any funds? - We have two basic partners:

1. The Global Harmony Association (GHA), a branch and department of which we are. Our youth participated in creation, to some extent, the GHA all projects, first of all its academic project 2008: “World Harmony Peace Academy (WHPA)”: http://www.peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=277. This project is a basis of our project. Our youth is in the constant creative contacts with our senior colleagues from the GHA. It unites more than 300 peacemakers, scientists, professors, writers and artists from 48 countries of the world, who share the general aspiration to the global harmony providing harmonious peace beyond wars, violence and other social pathologies.

2. The International Association of Educators for World Peace (IAEWP) uniting about 55 thousand teachers from more than 60 countries of the world. It is the UN affiliation and it is dedicated to UN goals of peace education, environmental protection, human rights and disarmament. The IAEWP approved GHA academic project o­n the 18 World Peace Congress in October 2008 in Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur. In the Congress Resolution is written: “The modern tendency of global harmonization requires general harmonious education. Therefore, the World Harmony Peace Academy (WHPA) as the generator of general harmonious education will inevitably be created… Support creation of the WHPA national branches in the different countries of the world… Ask Governments to study prospects of educational reform in each country o­n the basis of the WHPA Project” http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=355.

- Our partners play a role of voluntary advisers and the assistants who are not demanding payment. Therefore, any sharing of funds received under the Youth Solidarity Fund will not be with them except for special cases.

13.Budget: What are your main categories of expenditures? What are the total expenses for each category of expenditure?

14.Executive Summary. Project objectives? Problem addressed? Project activities? Target audience? Sustainability? UNAoC priorities, value-added, funding rationale? Marginalized youth? Monitor & evaluate impact?

•We want to achieve/create the first Youth Cross-cultural Academy of Harmony (YCHA) in a miniature, from which as from a seed, the powerful worldwide Academies of Harmony could grow and develop. They will provide a new, qualitative level of mutual understanding, intercultural and interreligious respect and consent o­n the basis of common value of harmony.

•This project will help to overcome growing polarization of cultures, religions and civilizations and to exclude the sources of their aggravating enmity. Harmonious education since the childhood is o­ne of the most effective and necessary tools for solution such problems.

•The project objectives we can reach, first of all, through preparation of the teachers of the most different disciplines of social and humanitarian knowledge. Preparation of such teachers is provided with scientific knowledge of social and individual harmony.

•Our project first of all is aimed to the young teachers and children of migrant's minorities.

•We plan to provide stability of our project in the future by the additional financing of other countries and regions of Russia and also by the YCHA transformation into commercial self-supporting educational institution.

•The YCHA project completely supports and develops the UNAoC high and noble objectives. Our project adds to them a universal value of harmony and offers for the UNAoC the qualitatively new and most effective tool of realization of its objectives: harmonious education through the Academies and Schools of Harmony. Therefore our project is worthy all-round support from the UNAoC and should receive its financing.

•Two marginalized groups: jobless teachers and children of migrants will be involved in our YCHA project through system of studies/lessons of harmonious education.