On its website, the European Youth Center in Budapest (supported by the Council of Europe) provides a wealth of interesting, useful, and free materials – one of them is Compass: A Manual on Human Rights Education With Young People. Compass is a resource that can give you a lot of interesting ideas for how to conduct workshops with young people, and how to support them to find out more about world issues. Detailed session plans and materials are available to you – to facilitate sessions on globalization, social rights, peace and violence, discrimination, gender equality, and many other topics.

Another tool that is offered by the the European Youth Center in Budapest  is the All Different – All Equal Education Pack. It provides basis for intercultural education, and can be very useful for facilitating sessions on the meaning of difference and how we deal with it across cultures of age, gender, ability, social class and ethnicity. Topics that the Education Pack touches on are discrimination, economical inequalities, and the way we think about and classify the world around us. An awareness of these differences is important for us to manage them effectively and appropriately.

In addition to an introductory discussion of these issues, more than 30 activities are listed and explained. They can help to explore what it means to be truly open to those from different backgrounds. You can also find a list of movies to illustrate the content and help facilitate discussions. The All Different – All Equal Education Pack is a resource that helps us take a deeper look at how we live together and how we can develop the curiosity that is needed in order to overcome the fear and uncertainty that often goes hand in hand with being confronted with difference. These tools are useful to support an AFS experience with the political and intercultural awareness that can help young people to really learn about the world we live in and have the knowledge, skills, and understanding to create a more just and peaceful world.