In July 2007, Youth Work practitioners from a wide range of countries attended the UNESCO Initiative Centre’s, ‘Youth Opens the Space’ programme in Wroclaw, a follow-up conference to a meeting of the UNESCO Euro-Med Youth Forum the previous year.

 

Using ‘Open Space Technology’, participants explored a range of topics, one of these being ‘Humour as a means of Conflict Resolution’.  Two workshops on the subject of humour were organised during the course of the conference and given the number and variety of other topics available for discussion, the large numbers in attendance were a testament to both the interest in humour and the strong motivation among practitioners to discuss the subject further.

 

Both workshops and a follow-up consultation paper circulated among participants paved the way for the development of a Feasibility Meeting in May 2008 in Northern Ireland with The Inside Out Programme being both applicant for funding and host organisation.

 

A successful feasibility meeting involved The Inside Out Programme (N Ireland), ISIS (Germany), Austria (ELT), Finland (NEFTI), Poland (UNESCO Initiatives Centre), Czech Republic (LOS) and Greece (REPUBLIC).

 

Eleven participants attended the meeting and worked together in an informal manner to consider various aspects of humour.  Participants had the opportunity to consider a variety of humour including cultural differences and were not only able to provide different examples of humour from each country but engaged in discussion about how to use humour at local level and between organisations. 

 

Whilst the meeting itself led to the development of a number of PBA’s (Partnership Building Activities) focusing on conflict, media and gender, further consideration was given to the development of a specific humour-led methodology.  Participants were able to examine a number of related issues including discussions regarding approaches to humour, issues raised as a result, and how humour is or can be used as a tool in youth work.

 

Alongside original partners Inside Out (Northern Ireland), UNESCO Initiatives Centre (Poland) and Klick e.V, (Germany), Act Global (England), Kaitseliit & Continuous Action (Estonia), Kaunas University of Technology Students Union & SDP (Lithuania), ELT (Austria), ELIX (Greece),  Zavod ANI (Slovenia), Autonomia E Descoberta (Portugal) and MUYA & Terra Di Mezzo (Malta) have all been partners in the delivery of 'Humour' through the recruitment of practitioners for programmes in Derry~Londonderry, Northern Ireland (April 2012 and October 2013) and in Rogosi, Estonia (March 2014).

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Since then the proogramme has been hosted on a further two occasions in Austria by GEMMA and EuropaHaus Klagenfurt in November 2018 and November 2021 respectively.