27 September 2012 was the 5th annual Intercultural Dialogue Day (IDD), a day of intercultural awareness and diversity promotion organized by the European Federation of Intercultural Learning (EFIL). Across Europe, AFS organizations and intercultural enthusiasts celebrated with events centered around creating a dialogue on the value of intercultural learning.

Examples include AFS Boznia and Herezgovina who offered a screening of the movie “East is East” in Banja Luca. AFS Latvia partnered with the Central Baltic INTERREG project “Youth Space”, holding a seminar in Riga about Intercultural learning, including team-building activities, discussions, and experience sharing from exchange students. These are among the many activities centered around IDD. You can also check out the map of Intercultural Dialogue Day events around Europe, or look forward to photos and comments posted on Intercultural Dialogue Day’s Facebook page.

EFIL also just opened the IDD Best Video and Best Photo contest that will extend until 14 October 2012. AFS volunteers are invited to post photos and videos of their IDD events on the Wall of the Face Book page, together with the description of the IDD event itself. It is very important that each video and picture submitted for the contest is accompanied by a description of the IDD event. For each of the two categories, the submission that receives the most votes – “Likes” – will win a free registration for one volunteer team member at the EFIL Volunteer Summer Summit 2013. Inspired by the top three finalists in each category (photo and video), EFIL will develop ‘IDD toolkits’ that will be replicable by volunteers across Europe in the next edition of the IDD. Be sure to enter with what you were doing on Intercultural Dialogue Day!