Crossroad-of-Europe

Crossroad-of-Europe is a youth exchange is dedicated to young people interested in storytelling, new media, blogs and active citizenship in order to tackle a common issue: illegal immigration, which has unfortunately become a dream happiness for African youth in general and a nightmare for some Europeans.

A lot of migrants want to reach Europe via the Strait of Gibraltar. To the point that Spain could in 2017 exceed Greece in number of arrivals by the sea. The migratory flow also increases at the two land borders of the European Union which are in Morocco. Young Africans rush into hundreds to climb the barbed wire fences of Ceuta and Melilla, two Spanish enclaves, on the north coast of Morocco.

According to an assessment of 6 August 2017 of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 8183 migrants have landed in Spain since the beginning of the year. It is more than triple the same period of 2016 – some 2500 – and more than the total of arrivals over the last year, told Agence France-Presse Joel Millman, spokesman for the IOM. These figures remain far from those of Italy with more than 96,400 migrants who have landed since the beginning of the year by the sea, but Spain is on track to catch up with Greece where 11,713 people have arrived by sea on the same period.

In southern Italy, Africans landed are primarily “economic” migrants. They are doomed to expulsion in the long term, unlike the beneficiaries of the right to asylum as Syrian war refugees. As do the ports of Sicily and Calabria today. Especially since the numbers are exploding: Italy has already welcomed more than 80,000 this year, a third more than in the first half of 2016.

In this context our youth exchange project “Crossroads of Europe” will bring together 36 young people from 6 different countries (France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Poland, and Hungary), our project will be held in Agrigento in Italy and will be theme of Illegal immigration through non-formal and informal
education.

Crossroad-of-Europe youth exchange is designed and dedicated to young people interested in home law and in particular illegal immigration, through storytelling, new media, blogs, active citizenship and non-formal education. offering them the opportunity to exchange ideas and points of view, to work together and to express themselves through different methods. During 07 days, participants will face different challenges, meet new people with different backgrounds while sharing skills and developing new skills. At the end of this learning path, these newly acquired skills will be a basic building block for creating opportunities and exploring new opportunities on their way home.

Self-reflection and non-formal education are key elements. Using non-formal education tools, participants will address the topic of illegal immigration and human rights.

Objectives

Our exchange of young “Crossroad-of-Europe” will have four objectives:

• Raising awareness about illegal immigration and creating a learning space through non-formal education, an open space of sharing, mixed cultures and different environments for young people through innovative tools and creative.
• The use of non-formal education, new media and the sharing of good practices as a tool for raising awareness and preventing illegal immigration.
• Create an international platform for organizations to share their experiences and the use of art as a tool to raise awareness and prevent illegal immigration.
• Better understand the opportunities of the Erasmus + program and non-formal education to promote European values of tolerance, understanding and respect for human rights.

Crossroad-of-Europe project will provide very valuable learning experiences for young people, and bring them to a unique experience, the participants of this mobility will be led to do so many activities such as games, role playing, simulation , visits, debates, artistic creativity workshops, evaluation and self-evaluation. They will experiment with the use of non-formal education methods.