The Basque Government and Public Achievement Northern Ireland, with the support of the peace centre Baketik, collaborate in the organization of the Youth Work in Contested Spaces (YWICS) project. It is an international conference about youth and conflict that will be held in Arantzazu, in the province of Gipuzkoa (the Basque Country), from the 18th to the 20th of October, 2007.

The project was born in Northern Ireland, with the collaboration between Public Achievement, the Youth Council for Northern Ireland and the School of Community Work of the University of Ulster in 2002. To the present there have been three editions, all of them in Northern Ireland. The next one will be in the Basque Country, for the first time.

The YWICS project is a collaboration between youth workers, policy makers, academics and young people from all over the world, with an especial attention in areas who have suffered or are still suffering a prolonged violent political conflict. In these places part of the challenge for youth work and youth workers is how we can help to:

• Capacity young people to contribute as active and productive citizens in divided and conflictive societies.
• Contribute to the building of a society less violent and more democratic (interdependent), just (equity) and plural (diversity).
• Promote processes of social change within young people, those who work with them and the communities they live in.

A central part of this ongoing project is the provision of an annual seminar that brings together an international group of youth work professionals to develop collaborative relationships and thinking around theory and practice as it impacts on practitioners and young people in situations of conflict and division around the world.