Mass movement of refugees and asylum seekers may be the hottest topic not only in Turkey but also in European countries. Every year millions of people around the world are leaving their homes because of persecution, war, conflicts, lack of safety and security or a search for a better life. The number of refugee is so much that; it nearly hits 50 million people all around the world. The flow of refugees has been increasing day by day and expected to continue throughout 2016 as the instability in the refugees’ homeland is expected to continue. Refugees movements involves not only the legal but also illegal ways especially for people who attempt to cross over Greek islands from coasts of Turkey. These attempts mostly causing deaths. Refugees and asylum seekers face some difficulties and challenges in their new homeland. They are facing a wide range of difficulties from hunger to homelessness, from lacking of social integration to access health, or education services. Since the number of refugee population is so high, it presents a major challenge to the EU to integrate those refugees into society. Moreover, high number of refugees also can cause a misunderstanding and xenophobia which sets a barrier to refugees’ integration to society. Hence we are group of six countries from Germany, Greece, Sweden, Turkey, Italy and Austria willing to raise awareness of our target group and dealing with the topic in more detail.The transnational strategic partnership is aimed at developing capacities of organisations dealing with migrant issues and the staff of the organisations will acquire new skills owing to an exchange of best practices within the transnatioanl short joint staff training events and the transnational project meetings. The project is based on inclusive, transnational, best practice and cooperation enabling approach.Through effective trans- national and local communication and cooperation will contribute to the accessibility and dissemination of innovative ideas and activities on the issue of refugees. The refugees and asylum seekers through innovative activities and good practices will have a chance to be integrated easily and become accepted members of society.Project Objectives;Overall objective: The overall objective of the project is to increase of skills and abilities of people working in partner organisations, stakeholders, local authorities, struggling to respond to and meet all the humanitarian need that refugees face and contribute to the improvements and innovative practice for refugees and asylum seekers.Specific Objectives;- The project will raise awareness about refugees and their physiological and social needs. With the aim of to change negative attitudes into positive ones. - One of other aim of the project is to promote an understanding of the situation of refugees both in Turkey and Europe, encourage citizens to take active role in facilitating the hospitality for people seeking protection and a better life.- We would like to develop innovative actions and practices to fulfill the needs of the refugees and asylum seekers.- The project will blend together organisations, stakeholders, NGOs, non-formal educations, as well as local self-governments and authorities together with target group (refugees and asylum seekers). Good relationship among project partners and stakeholders will create v-both local and international coordination mechanism to create a successful network to provide resources for innovative and good practices. With the workshops, seminars,learning short joint staff trainings, mobilities and all the activities carried out during the project process, we aimed at to enhance our skillss and abilities, promote intercultural communication and international cooperation, facilitating social inclusion, strengthing solidarity at an international level also building networks at local, national and international levels.
After the war broke out in Syria in 2011, the residents began leaving their home lands to live in safer conditions. Then it turned out to be a refugee crisis whic would affect all the European countries. Being the neighbour and first safer place for those hope seekers, Turkey became their first stop. Some chose Turkey to live in, others deemed Turkey as the first pit stop to go deeper in Europe, mostly to the land of hope, Germany. There was also another group of refugees who tried to reach Europe through the islands and mainland of Greece, which made Greece the second most-affected country. Italy was another destination for them. For all these reasons, we thought we should do something to touch the refugees' lives. These four countries which were affected most by the crisis (Turkey, Greece, Italy, and Germany) came together to start up a partnership. In order to reach up to the northern Europe, Sweden was also included in our group. The last parner was chosen from the middle of Europe, Austria. So, six institutions formed up a partnership for the folowing objectives: -ADULT EDUCATION: Designing and implementing effective provision for enhancing the basic skills and key competences -HORIZONTAL: Improve achievement in relevant and high-level basic and transversal competences in a lifelong learning perspective -ADULT EDUCATION: Improving and extending the offer of high quality learning opportunities The kick-off meeting was held in Turkey since we are the coordinator. We allocated tasks. We included four short term learning-teaching training activities in our agenda, all of which were to be conducted by our partners according to their expertise. The first LTTA was held in Berlin by weltgewandt e.V. They are specialized in citizenship education and theatre of oppressed techniques. So, the main subject of our first LTTA was mainly, but not limited to citizenship education. IFALL, our Swedish partner introduced the integration methods used in Sweden in our second LTTA. Greece is the second most affected country from the refugee crisis as some of the refugees try to reach Europe via Greece. The voluntary organizations play a great role in stabilizing the crisis in Greece. Many of them try to give either psychological or physical support to the refugees. This was what the project partners were shown during our third LTTA which was held in Greece in January 2018. The participants witnessed the importance of those voluntary organizations in Greece. The final training was supposed to be held by our former partner DUK. However, due to the staff scarcity, we had to make a partner change, and included another humanitarian NGO from Slovenia, Terra Vera. The training subject stayed same, but the trainer changed. Terra Vera showed us how effective and important the ICT usage and crosscultural communication in refugee issues are. In order to disseminate what we gained from these trainings, we came together with our other staff and presented them our trainings. So, we shared our gainings. As our main objective has been to give refugees the sense of fraternity, our activities were planned to enhance this sense. We gave the refugees the chance to introduce their cultures,traditions and cuisines in our festivals. We came together with them in our breakfasts as well. In order to raise our local people's awareness, we conducted a seminar given by a university lecturer specialized on refugee issues in Ayvacık, Çanakkale, which is an escape point for the refugees. Mainly mukhtars were our primary target since we deemed them as crucial leaders having an impact on other villagers. Since most of the refugees live in unhealthy conditions and are not aware of family planning, we aimed to raise their awareness on such health issues as contagious diseases and family planning. Two doctors from ministry of health gave a lecture about health issues to the refugees, which is another successful step in our project. In order to increase the level of communication, four of our partners (T.C. Canakkale Valiliği, Action Synergy, EuroNet and Terra Vera) opened language courses. AS the coordinator, we opened two language courses (one for the refugees by which we gave 22 Afghan youngsters Turkish courses, and one for our staff by which we gave 10 public officers Persian courses).