The second session (Jan 11.) began with short presentations from Chinese and European young participants, followed by the screening of interviews of the young participants the day before.
An open discussion followed, based on participants’ impressions of the interviews, as well as a number of workshop questions on the topic of youth access to culture.
During the workshop, Chinese youth participants performed traditional Chinese kungfu and folk music.
In the workshop of “Access of Young People to Culture and Creativity”, Chinese and European young participants described their personal experiences as a cultural user or creator, gathered examples of intercultural experiences of cultural activities, roughly defined what culture means to the youth, identified the obstacles young people may face in accessing culture, and established the objectives for the improvement of youth access to culture representatives.
Chinese and European young participants reached the following consensus:
First, the cultural diversity of China and Europe should be fully understood with due respect in order to improve young people’s skills in inter-cultural communication.
The concepts encouraging energetic social participation, cultural diversity, and active civic awareness should be promoted among the youth. The understanding toward China or Europe’s cultures and heritages should be strengthened.
The youth should be encouraged to learn foreign languages for further communication and provided with more opportunities to get familiar with the languages and cultures of China or Europe.
Second, the cultural communication activities should be carried out more frequently.
The partnerships between Chinese and European cultures, youth creativity organizations and young people should be promoted at full levels.
The youth of China and Europe should be given enough opportunities to make the best use of their potentials and realize efficient self-management with special training in culture, new media and intercultural communication.
Some popular means that the youth may love to see and hear should be used in promoting the inter-cultural communication.
Third, proper support should be given to encourage development of the creativity of Chinese and European young people.
The creative power of the youth should be developed though a wide range of cultural expressions and paths. Proper circumstances under which the youth may get fascinated by cultures and arts and their creativities may get further developed should be established.
The long-term cooperation with respect to policies and programs in the fields of cultures, education, and media should be further strengthened with the purpose of improving young people’s abilities to get jobs.
Proper support should be given to encourage the development of young people’s creative power and abilities to establish their own businesses.
This dialog-encouraged workshop identified the main obstacles in youth’s access to cultures.
All participants exchanged their practical experiences in cultural activities and identified the future trend of the cultural communication between Chinese and European young people, thus promoting the cultural communication between China and Europe.
(by Correspondent Fu Rao)
