Babilon Travel NGO’s main mission is to promote intercultural dialog, inclusion, adaptive sports as instruments of inclusion, active European citizenship among young people, young people with fewer opportunities or disabled. We also promote sustainable tourism, rural tourism, ecotourism, traditions and handicrafts of Romania with focus on the region of Transylvania and the city of Cluj-Napoca, creating tourist tracks suitable for disabled young people.

In our work we are widely supported by our local strategic partners: The High School for Visually Impaired Cluj-Napoca, The Tourist Information Center of the City Hall (Cluj-Napoca), The National Association of Blind and Visually Impaired Romania and The Ethnographical Museum of Transylvania.

To fulfill our mission we create and implement various projects and activities, on local and international level. One of these projects, “Value the Difference”, an Erasmus+ KA-1, is our first international project, financed by the European Union, in which Babilon Travel is the main coordinator, not only partner.

Value the Difference is a multi-activity project designed to promote integration of visually impaired young people through sport and outdoor activities. To achieve its objectives we planned two separate events taking place in Romania and Poland.

First activity is a 8 days long training course, that is gathering 24 youth workers from 5 countries (Romania, Poland, Italy, Greece and Belgium) taking place in Cluj-Napoca, Romania from 3rd to 11th of November 2015.

Event targets youth workers willing to explore and extract all the possible positive aspects of work with visually impaired youth, using non-formal methods of education for developing consistent inclusion and acceptance among our beneficiaries.

Second activity is a 7 days long youth exchange for 40 participants (35 young people aged 18-30 and 10 leaders, that also act as accompanying persons for the visually impaired/blind participants), that will take place in Poronin, Poland, between January 16-24, 2016. During this activity we invite the youth workers that took part in TC in Romania to put in practice new skills and evaluate methods learned.

The themes of the project are: Intercultural dialogue and acceptance, education and youth work through sport and outdoor activities, physical and mental health of youngsters, anti-discrimination, and inclusion of marginalized youth through sport/outdoor activities, in youth work, Erasmus+ programme and European level projects in the youth field.

The project is based on the approach and principles of non-formal education. A combination of different creative and interactive methods will be used and designed upon the profile of participants with accent on using more methods of sport and outdoor activities. All activities will be attended by a mixed group of participants, with and without visual impairment.

Our partners:

• Youth of Europe – Poland
• Mine Vaganti NGO – Italy
• VIEWS International – Belgium
• Social Care Network HELP – Greece
• Special High School for Visually Impaired Cluj-Napoca – Romania
• Municipality of Cluj-Napoca – Romania

If you are interested to apply for the first activity, the training course in Romania, you can download the info pack and download the application form. Fill out the form and send it until October 10th, to office@babilontravel.net.

If you are interested to apply for the second activity, the youth exchange in Poland, you can download the info pack and download the application form. Fill out the form and send it to office@babilontravel.net.

For any further information please don’t hesitate to contact us at office@babilontravel.net.

Related articles:

Value the Difference – Press release (27.10.2015)

Value the Difference – Starting the second part

Value the Difference on local, national and international media