Let them be heard

Aims and objectives

According to Eurostat in 2018 the number of refugees and migrants arriving to the EU dropped sharply, but still there are more than 1,8 million people who arrived to Europe since 2014 and cannot go back. It creates challenges for the EU, local governments, societies, and NGOs. Those problems are different and are mainly related to policies of local governments in European countries. In the Southern part of Europe (Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece) we’re facing problems of integrating huge amount of people into new social, economic and cultural realities. In the Eastern part of Europe on the other hand we face issues of xenophobia, racism and violence towards migrants and refugees, demanding active attitude of NGOs. To face those challenges partner organisations need easy, engaging and attractive tools of youth work. As our local realities are different, those tools need to be versatile, scalable, and possible to use despite cultural and language differences. We agreed that the only sphere allowing to cross inner boundaries and our prejudices is art, thus we decided to choose art, namely theatre, as a main framework for our project. During the seminar we will discuss problems of youth in our local communities, understand who migrants and refugees are, discuss and define role of youth NGOs in their support and social inclusion, and learn good practices of such activities and actions. We will also learn and discuss possibilities of using theatre as a language and base of youth activities. The main objective of the seminar will be to discuss and understand situation of young people and define scope of our activities, along with possible methods we may use. Those methods will be the main topic of the second activity of the project – the training course. The main objective of the training will be to equip participants – representatives of eleven NGOs with practical tools of youth work, such as forum theatre and other theatre related methods they will use to organise activities within their organisations. Other objectives of the project are to strengthen cooperation of NGOs in Europe, leverage their organisational capacities, and exchange good practices. In the long term we expect the project to positively affect situation of young refugees and migrants in Europe and foster their social inclusion. Non formal education will be the most commonly used methodology.

Duration

SEMINAR: 18th of November till the 25th of November 2019 (including travel days)
TRAINING COURSE: 12th of February till the 20th of February 2020 (including travel days)

Involved countries

The project involves 27 youth workers and youth educatots in the Seminar and 38 in the Training Course from Portugal, Poland, Spain, Iitaly, Greece, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Hungary and The Republic of North Macedonia. Both activities will be held in Braga, Portugal.

Participants’ profile

The project contains two activities. Seminar is directed to youth workers, trainers, facilitators and mentors who wish to be take active steps to foster social inclusion of migrants and refugees through exchange of good practices, project ideas, better understanding of the Erasmus+ programme, and analysis of needs of their local communities in European perspective. On the other hand, Training Course is directed to those who wish to acquire new tools of youth work, expand their portfolios, broaden their networks, as well as based on their ability to fully utilize results of the project in their organisations (by organising new activities and passing on new skills to other members of their organisations and beyond). One participant of the seminar per organisation should also be in the training course in order to create better connection and understanding of the topic among participants. Participants of the seminar will play an important role in the designed educational process of the training course, actively sharing their experience, knowledge and skills gained through their participation in the seminar, they will also get a chance to leverage their position in their organisations (by acting as non-formal leaders, equipped with unique competences and part of the important international project).

To allow the project to achieve its goals, the youth workers chosen for the activity will have to show:
– Knowledge of the migration situation in their own country;
– Having taken part in at least one international educational programme (training course, seminar, etc.)
– Having been involved with youth work at local level with their NGO’s
– Motivation to take part in a mutual learning process in a highly intercultural setting
– Good level of English to follow the course and to contribute to it
– Wish and ability to participate fully in the event
We receive participants from 18 years old, and there is no upper age limit.