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Three years ago, none of us could have imagined where we would be today. Not only were we having to meet online, but awareness of racism in society is front and centre, with Black Lives Matter protests happening in cities around the world.

This would be the final meeting for the Standing Together Against Racism in Europe project, at least in its current form. We logged into Zoom with coffees and smiles from eight different countries and nine organisations, to reflect on what we have achieved so far and what might be next.

We started by discussing our hopes, fears and expectations using Miro. This is an online tool that helps recreate the feeling of putting post-it notes on boards, as all our in-person meetings have involved! We had a chance to practice earlier so now was our chance to scribble on our keyboard and position them with the mouse.

This was a new tool for many of us, but we adapted quickly. Fears ranged from the technology going wrong during the day to whether the lack of racial diversity in our own group might hold us back. Hopes and expectations centred around our optimism for the programme and our feeling that the handbooks we had produced are an excellent way to engage young people and organisations to be the change they want to see.

We spent time reflecting on the journey we had been on: our collective & personal achievements, challenges along the way and insights and lessons learned. The things that resonated were getting the handbooks finished, celebrating and how well designed they are; learning how to do online meetings ourselves through the multiplier events; and the time spent together at each of the meetings over the last three years.

Andreas has been pivotal to the success of this project. He took the opportunity to summarised how the project went and key milestones along the way. We then reflected on how we used the resources provided and the changes that were experienced in our organisations as a result. Many of the ICYE member organisations have been using the methods at camps and with their young people already.

We had been introduced to Mentimeter at the meeting in Cadca, which is an interactive tool that allows people to vote and make other contributions as part of a presentation. Balint prompted us with challenging questions and we then discussed the results. There was a consensus that this would be a useful tool for future work, in particular to see how people’s positions can change over the course of time.

Lenka from Keric had an excellent way to recreate the benefits of an energizer in an online setting. She played Roxanne’by the Police: all the women had to stand when Sting sang the word “Roxanne” and the men had to stand when he sang “Red light”. It definitely got us moving and brought up the energy for the afternoon session.

The bulk of the afternoon was spent discussing the future of the project: how we could develop the content already produced, how to adapt it for a post-Covid world, what role the website could play, how to broaden our networks.

If you have ideas or suggestions for how this project might move forward in future, please share them in the comment box below!

To get a sense of how each session during the day was received, Balint asked us to use our faces as the rating scale. Hand on the forehead meant great, hand pointing to the eyes, was not bad, hand to the mouth was ok, and hand to the nose was stinky! It was a lovely way to see and share how we felt about the day and in general feedback was positive, despite six hours sat in front of the Zoom screen.

The day ended without a sense of finality. While this project has finished, it feels like there is more to be done and there is a great energy among all the partners to be part of combating racism through engaging young people and encouraging organisations to change for the better.

We all have a part to play in standing together against racism in Europe

The STAR E project has developed two publications – Managing organisational change: tools and methods to become a diversity-sensitive NGO, and The STAR E training handbook – both of which we hope other organisations can use for their work with young people and their own governance to help them engage with issues of diversity and inclusion.

One way to share these publications is what we are calling “multiplier meetings”, or Fachtag in German. These are sessions with people from a variety of organisations, where we showcase a method from one of the two handbooks, as a way to encourage attendees to use them with either their young people or management team.

In November 2019, ICYE UK held our Annual General Meeting (AGM), which was attended by members from across the network, many of whom work or volunteer for organisations that engage young people. It therefore seemed an ideal opportunity to run our first multiplier meeting for the training handbook, as this was more suited to the kind of people attending the AGM.

I decided that the simplest method to use in this context would be Columbian Hypnosis, as it required no additional materials and could be done within the timeframe available for this session.

I introduced the STAR E programme, including our work on managing organisational change, to provide some context for the handbook, and then explained what we would be doing next. Attendees were split into pairs with one designated the ‘leader’ and the other the ‘follower’. For the first five minutes the follower has to mirror everything the leader does: anything from holding up their hand in front of their face to climbing over the nearest chair! After five minutes people swap roles and it’s the turn of the follower to lead.

The idea behind Columbian Hypnosis is that people experience both the power to influence and powerlessness, and are then encouraged to reflect on how both experiences made them feel.

We used the prompts from the handbook for the debriefing, sparking a lively conversation and some interesting debate. Many of the attendees said they were inspired to read other methods from the handbook and explore how these could be used at their organisations.

The full training handbook will be available in print and online from February 2020. If you are interested in attending a multiplier meeting, where you would also receive a printed copy of the training handbook, contact your local partner organisation. The online version will be available on this website.

I attended the ICYE STAR-E meeting in Helsinki. Other UK Trustees, as well as staff, have benefited from attending the STAR-E meetings: these are a great opportunity to learn about our federation partners and to be part of vital joint initiatives which become stronger and more effective from the intra-federation collaboration. Inter-cultural exchange is a fact in our relationships and partnerships, not just in our name.

ICYE UK is proud to be a part of STAR-E and has been enthusiastically involved at every opportunity. We are incredibly grateful to ICJA for facilitating this opportunity to gain a fresh perspective on antiracism from true experts like UNITED. It has been a privilege to be able to send representatives to all STAR-E training seminars, and the information and ideas they have brought back to ICYE UK have been invaluable.

ICYE UK has already integrated a number of training methods learned at STAR-E seminars in to our own training camps and hope that these new training approaches will help educate our volunteers about racism and their role as global citizens.

ICYE UK has also been given the opportunity and the methods to look at our organisational prejudices. It is our hope to make ICYE UK an even more transparent and accessible organisation, open to the widest possible range of potential volunteers and partner organisations.

ICYE UK is looking forward to the next transnational meeting and promoting the publications to wider audiences. We plan to engage with both our host partner organisations in the UK and our global partners around the world to share our learning and to enable more individuals and organisations to benefit from the outcomes of STAR E.