The world is facing an unprecedented displacement crisis. Today, more than 65 million people are forcibly displaced as a result of violent conflicts and natural disasters (source: European Commission). In 2015, over 1 million people – refugees, displaced persons and other migrants – have made their way to the EU, either escaping conflict in their country and in search of better economic prospects. While the numbers have shown a decreasing trend in 2016, by June around 156 000 people have reached Europe (source: UNHCR). We and all of the project partners believe that these numbers and the current situation with the refugee crisis imply the need to every organization and institution to be engaged in the process of raising the voice about this situation. Inclusion of refugees, asylum seekers in the European societies has been the mayor point of discussion and the main goal of the European Union as a place where all of these people are looking for help. The main reason for this project is to involve young people into activities which will firstly educate them about the current situations, will inspire them and make them take actions to contribute to the entire situation. The project will target firstly the young people age 18-25 who are the European future. We look at each one of these young people as a potential source and facilitator in solving the current issues. The second target group of this project will be the general public, the European public which will be educated through the built online platform and the eucational videos created on this platform. The project methodology is strongly inspired by the phenomenon of video blogging, the influence of social media and the online courses which have been the modern way of learning. We would like to use all of these options in order to create an online platform available for everyone to be visited and used for educational purposes. The issue of massive migrations, the refugee crisis and the increase of the number of asylum seekers is a problem that concerns the world. We have come to a point where we decided to include various European countries with various experiences to be part of this project. For example, we are including Romania as a country with strict anti-refugee policy on one side, then Macedonia as a country which was directly faced with the biggest waves of refugees in the region, to Luxembourg as a country completely open towards the implementation of the European strategy for inclusion of refugees in the new society where they have arrived. The compilation of countries as we believe, will bring so many different opinions, facts, information, knowledge and experience which will give the project a look for all of the available perspectives. We believe that this will also strongly influence on the project results, outputs and its massive educational dimension. The project also follows one of the best practices implemented for refugee inclusion, the Refugee Project Maastricht. We tend to deliver all alternative ideas for educating people more about the current situation, raising the awareness and motivating them to act towards creating greater results. Knowing the capacity of the project, we will act as a supplement to the work of the global actions and global organizations including UNHCR, United Nations and the International Refugee Committee. We will work directly with the citizens of countries and motivate them how they can act and contribute, and through the built digital platform, we will also be able to act as digital source of information, an educator through sharing practical experiences.
The project "Partnering for refugees. Europe for you!" brings out the importance of the topic of refugee crisis and migration to young people on European level. Refresh Luxembourg and its partners have noticed the need of a project of this kind for young people. This project has confirmed the huge need for education of young people about refugees and who they are, what happened to them and what is their living situation in the countries that they have got to. These elements are not often discussed with the young people. This project has proven that young people are full of empathy and ideas how to react on the issues related to refugee crisis and how to improve the process of migration. The two mobilities of young people organised in Luxembourg and North Macedonia, as well as the events organised in Spain and Romania have brought the information about the project topic to over 4 000 people. Another element of importance for this project has been the project platform: http://re-fresh.lu/strategic/ built to raise the awareness of young people around Europe about the importance of being well informed about the refugee crisis, and if possible, taking actions towards improving the current situation. Around 6.000 visitors have been able to review the website content and learn more about the refugee crisis and migration. The main project objectives were fully achieved including the following: 1. Directly educating over 40 young people who will bring 40 innovative ideas how to educate their local community about the situation with refugees and their inclusion into the communities. 2. Maintenance of 4 national researches from the 4 countries involved in the project. The researches will examine the attitude of the citizens related to refugee crisis and treatment of refugees in the countries. These researches will provide results on which we, national agencies and bodies may examine the topic. Luxembourg research: http://re-fresh.lu/strategic/2019/10/14/insights-from-the-luxembourg-team-on-the-refugee-crisis/ North Macedonia research: http://re-fresh.lu/strategic/2019/10/14/refugee-crisis-in-the-republic-of-north-macedonia-report-from-macedonian-participants-2019/ Romania research: http://re-fresh.lu/strategic/2019/10/14/overview-on-the-refugee-crisis-in-romania/ Spain research: http://re-fresh.lu/strategic/2019/10/14/country-comparison/ 3. Over 10.000 people reached through dissemination activities and usage of the project platform: http://re-fresh.lu/strategic/ 4. 300 direct users of the services of the project. 5. Created digital platform with outputs in all formats: video, text, pictures and sound. The platform provides information, lessons, stories and reliable resources. 6. Facilitated cooperation with schools, municipalities and local televisions and media in general in order to improve the project promotion. More about the project supporters on the following link: http://re-fresh.lu/strategic/project-supporters/ 36 young people coming from 4 different countries and 10 people as organisational staff have been involved in the project directly through the two mobilities organised in Luxembourg and North Macedonia. These young people coming from different social, economic, geographical and cultural background have been able to discuss and learn more about the project topic, as well as to come up with ideas related to improvement of the current situation. These young people have been students at schools and universities in Spain, Romania, North Macedonia and Luxembourg. There also were people working in companies or organisations, as well as young people who volunteer in different actions related to refugees. The compilation of this group of young people that have been included during the past 2 years of the project has made a massive contribution to raising awareness about the topic of refugee crisis. Moreover, the project included organisations though Europe, local partners and media that have been also included in the process of spreading the voice about the project. A total of 10000 direct and indirect users have been included in the project. The project involved several main events which are listed below together with the generated results: 1. Kick off meeting in Spain - at this meeting the plan for the project was designed and confirmed. Also, the web platform design has been approved and initiated. 2. Blended mobility of young people in Luxembourg - the first participants at the project have been involved and they created the first stories of the project, initiated the usage of the web platform and created a huge media archive that has been used throughout the project. 3. Blended mobility of young people in North Macedonia - the media campaign in North Macedonia and the dissemination of the story of the project have been in the focus of the group of the people attending the mobility 4. Dissemination event in Spain - Spain has been informed on a high level by having the young people from Alora doing numerous events in schools and having included over 128 people in their dissemination activities. Please find the full link to the internal report by the Spanish partner on the following link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xCvsdSR3DYUJaL5miuA0DSZvEwDQO8i8?usp=sharing and website post: http://re-fresh.lu/strategic/2020/01/13/dissemination-in-spain/. 5. Change Festival in Campina, Romania - the young people of Campina organised a festival with over 150 attendees to raise awareness about the project topic in the area and in Romania as a whole. Huge media coverage of this event raised the voice about the project in Romania. Also, an NGO fair has been another prove for support of the project topic by the Romanian non-governmental organisations. Link to more information http://re-fresh.lu/strategic/2020/01/13/change-festival-campina-2019/ 6. Evaluation meeting in Romania - The project partners representatives have been part of the final event of the project concluding the project results and elaborating the joint work in the past 2 years. The long term impact of the project is visible through the project platform that continues to be updated and used by the visitors. This platform ensures the future sustainability of the project and provides content for the future activities.