b). As for the TRAINING period, during the whole week the participants tried to represent the region where they live - BANAT - as it is nowadays and it was in the past, in order to the better shape the actions needed in the future and thus to fully participate at the life of Banat region.

But, before getting into the Banat subject, the young people from Yugoslavia, Romania and Hungary were ...

This is the reason why most of the participants refused to talk about controversial moments in the history of the region, but focused on presenting different events organized nowadays, which gather representatives of different cultures living in the region and which aims at strengthening the relations between the people (i.e. music festivals, art shows etc). All the participants agreed with this approach; just a couple of them presented historical moment such as combats, revolutions and proposed to discuss, for example, upon the interpretation of Trianon Treaty in the Romanian and Hungarian history schoolbooks, but participants rather preferred, as mentioned above, to find about the “EXIT” music festival, organized each year in Novi Sad (Yugoslavia), with Serbian, Romanian and Hungarian participation.

The group adopted a different attitude while presenting the Banat nowadays.
The exercise that generated the discussions on this topic consisted in drawing on the floor of the workspace the map of Banat, with well-defined borders.

It is important to mention that, before writing the key words or sentences presenting the situation of Banat in their country, all the participants discussed in groups (according to the countries represented).

Some questions were addressed to the Serbian group by the other participants in order to clarify different notions that they used, such as: “provincialism”, through which they understood “under-development” comparing to the region around the capital (Belgrade);  “autonomy” , through which they didn’t mean creating the Republic of Vojvodina, as all the participants expected, but autonomy from the legislative point of view. 

The discussions were oriented at the beginning around the utilisation of terms such as “tolerance”, very controversial among the group as part of the members were adepts of the theory that tolerance means a subordination relation, but finally agreed that “peaceful coexistence “ would better illustrate the situation of the Romanian side of Banat.

 The common point of view that gathered the participants during the exploration of the past – the one that they are together in order to make something for the future – separated them in this exercise, as Romanians were reproached to have been presented only the positive aspect of the life. “It would have been more appropriate to present what it is not right, in order to try to do something in this sense” and not “the image of a paradise for the minorities” was said. The Romanian group tried to explain that all of them – even being so diverse and representing the Romanian majority but also the main minorities (Hungarian, German, Serbian, Jew, Roma, Slovak) living in the region – agreed upon the elements to be presented. They considered that not the bad condition of the roads is characteristic for Banat, but the aspects they presented.

Nevertheless the other 2 groups felt like loosing a competition of which rules they haven’t been aware.
obs. THE TRAINERS OF THIS SUMMER SCHOOL ARE AWARE THAT THIS ISSUE  NEEDS STILL TO BE DEBATED AMONG THE YOUNG PEOPLE. THIS IS THE REASON WE INVITE YOU ALL, TO EXPRESS YOUR OPINIONS ON THE FORUM !!!

As for the actions to be undertaken in the future, the participants worked in a very interesting manner in order to give a shape to their different ideas or solutions.

The group decided to work according to the Stability Pact’s structure, as the project that gathered them in Szeged is developed under this important frame. They decided to create a Pact of Young people from Banat and thus divided in working tables, according to 3 fields that they identified:

WORKING TABLE 1

WORKING TABLE 2

The concrete actions should be:

- Creating magazines with the three official languages (Romanian, Hungarian, Serbian), and this number should rise if there is an interest for it (involving minority languages). The editor’s team should be gathered from young journalists of the region. Magazines should present different subjects (from culture to sports), but all adapted for the interests of a certain age group. This is our way of beating the lack of information and controlled media problem, and would be the first step to a citizen society. Special attention should be brought to problems like AIDS, harmful drugs, etc. It’s been suggested to distribute condoms with these magazines.
- Organizing music and culture festivals in the three countries. The results of these festivals would be making friendship among the people, so there should be good removers of prejudice, stereotypes, etc.
-  Creating a television program. This step would be a great refreshment of media in the three countries. The program should have a mixed character, with presenting the urban culture, and bringing the traditional culture closer to the youth. This would also involve educating young people to work on this TV program, that should be in the three languages and viewable in whole Banat region. This would be our way to expand the media space for all nations and religions, and also a great increase of tolerance.
- Organizing seminars with specific subjects for the students and young professionals of certain fields of science and arts (e.g. environment protection, international law, drama, etc.). This should give these people a chance to exchange experience and learn from each other on professional level, and a chance to give some concrete solutions for the existing problems.
- Organizing lectures and debates for educating the youth on topics like AIDS, environment problems, drugs, etc.
- Banatian games - a sport contest of wide range for the youth of Banat. It should be the presentation of sports spirit, healthy life, young energy, and also a good way of getting in touch with each other.
- Establishing a labour-market that should open a possibility for young professionals to get jobs easier in any of the three countries.
- INFO-CENTERS would be the information mediators between the founders of the pact and the people (citizens). These INFO-CENTERS should be located in every larger city in Banat. They would be the presenters of the Pact’s program and also a good way of collecting information on the success of the project, and the people’s reactions, suggestions and objections.
-  Internet as the most relevant media should be involved in communication, presentation (web site), information gathering, etc. By making a web site of the Pact with online discussions, chat rooms, presentation of the Pact, etc. we should create a virtual info center accessible to everybody interested, anytime. This site should be in the three regional languages and in English also, and should there be a need it could be easily altered to add new languages.

WORKING TABLE 3

In building cultural bridges in Banat, the participants identified the following possibilities aiming at generating cultural exchanges in the region:
 

- creation of regional networks with  different issues but aiming at "unity in diversity"
- creation of regional centers and thus recruitment of young people, presentation of the idea near founders and the large public
- organising summer schools, cultural festivals, meetings between contemporary young artists and exhibitions of their works (theater, film, paintings etc.)
- organising different contests for scholarships, summer schools, audio-video products related to the mission of the project
- utilisation of the Internet for keeping the connection between the participants (ex. the BANNET page)

The participants agreed that the mission of the action they propose - the Pact - should reflect the change that they would like to see and generate in Banat’s life, meaning that the young people should become active participants to the future. Therefore, the mission’s keywords are “young people”, “power”, “active participation” and “future”.

Here are some extraits:

"The Banat region after the year 1919. was put in a situation were nations that lived together for centuries got separated by borders that were not easy to cross. Unfortunately, this led to isolation of each other and the lack of communication in fields of culture, science and economy. The situation got worse with the birth of nationalism that resulted in building prejudices, stereotypes, xenophobia, and hatred in people.  

Now, on the beginning of the III millennium a new strong energy has risen to overcome the problems of the past and begin a new era of cooperation and understanding. 

We, the youth involved with the BANNET project want to help this by organizing the youth of Banat, in order to improve the social, economic and cultural situation. The young people is now much more opened to new ideas than the elder who got tortured by the communist regimes in our countries, so by giving the youth a chance to meet, cooperate and communicate, to ignore all the bad influence and start to live normally.  

The project we want to offer is based on connecting the youth of Banat to make and maintain the communication and build friendships, because it’s proven to be the most efficient way to bring close a large mass of separated people. This project should bring change into young people’s thinking, and it is very important for the future of the region." (by Arpad ASODI)

In the following period, the participants will be working on identifying the possibilities of concretising the Pact (creating a new organisation? if so, where should the headquarter be? which is the possible funding for such action? after closing the funding period, how will the functionning be ensured? etc.)

As soon as possible, this action will be concretely presented under the PROJECTS section of this page.