Gender-related issues challenge intercultural dialogue in many ways at both national and international levels. The representation regarding gender originates in social relations including class, religion and ethnicity. Gender roles should be constructed not as a barrier, on the contrary they should be recognized as a category that connects men and women, their specific mental and physical constructions, ideas and beliefs.

Obtaining gender equality means obtaining a full accomplishment of every individual’s potential. Even if it has not yet been accomplished on both shores of the Mediterranean Sea, it should be an integral part of modern democratic and inclusive societies.

Based on these observations, the organisers of I-Gender aimed to support and promote gender equality and intercultural dialogue by developing educational methodologies to include and tackle gender issues efficiently when working with young people in the contexts of intercultural dialogue.

An international training course was held in February 2017 in Spain for youth workers willing to explore the role of gender in intercultural education and to share, learn and develop non-formal learning methodologies to promote gender equality. The course was designed as a mutual learning situation where the vast regional diversity of approaches was endorsed as an opportunity to explore further into social and personal meanings of these concepts.

In March 2017 each partner organized a local focus group to receive feedback from experts on the developed curricula. Each partner participating then went on to apply the curricula with 25 young people in their own communities between April and June of 2017. The project was led by Asociacion Euroaccion.