Zasavje Regional development agency (RDA Zasavje) will, in the time period from 1.1.2019 till 31.12.2020, implement the project Pathways to belonging: From interculturAL dialogue to sociaL Inclusion (project acronym ALL IN).

Selection of the idea originates from the local environment, as the Zasavje region is due to its past extremely diverse and varied. Lively migration movements throughout Slovenia and labour migrations in the region led to a great heterogeneity of cultures in the region.

Due to the nature of the tender, RDA Zasavje extended the idea to a transnational level and convinced the European Commission with thesis that migrations represent one of the oldest human activities that have historically shaped countries, societies and also national, regional and local identities. These are the products of early migration waves but they were not as massive as they are today due to great mobility and accessibility of travel in recent decades. Societies are becoming increasingly more multicultural while the identity of many homogeneous nations and local, regional communities is now being questioned.

Project partners will address the positive aspects of intercultural dialogue and negative responses that can appear next to it on 7 transnational study visits, where all European citizens will be able to participate in various activities.

Within two years of the project, project partners will gather migrant stories with different backgrounds and additionally meet with some of them in person. The main purpose of gathering stories comes from the assumption that people can more easily identify themselves with different personal stories than with the statistical data.

With intention to bring foreign cultures closer to every European citizen, cooking recipes will be collected and published throughout the project. They present a bridge to cognition and understanding of cultural differences, thereby bringing foreign culture to every home. Both recipes and stories as well as study visit good practices will be published on blog, while a pdf brochure will present a final product of the project.

Project partners:
Zasavje Regional development agency (Slovenia)
Association for the Development of Voluntary Work Novo mesto (Slovenia)
Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (Montenegro)
NGO Domovik (Kosovo)
Regional Association of Local Government of Western Macedonia (Greece)
Foundation Institute for Eastern Studies (Poland)
The Municipality of Pegeia (Cyprus)
Association of city organizations Foligno (Italy)
 
The project is co-financed by the European Union's 'Europe for Citizens' program, strand Democratic engagement and civic participation, measure Networks of towns.