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Once upon the time, a Migrant’s journey: Empowerment and Resilience

2019-3-FR02-KA105-0168532019Youth mobilityfinalized
Countries: FR|PT|HU|ES|EL|BG · Grant: €51,475
EU Citizenship, EU awareness and DemocracyIntercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learningIntegration of refugees

Objectives

The partner associations of this project started from the observation that dialogue between peoples is the basis for the construction of a society based on humanist and democratic values. However, in our increasingly multicultural societies and in a difficult economic context, the influx of the migration issue into the public debate is accelerating a rise in political or religious radicalisation and accompanying a phenomenon of incomprehension and rejection of the figure of the immigrant. phenomenon of incomprehension and rejection of the figure of the Other. Our associations work on migration issues, whether by raising awareness among the general public, fighting against misinformation, or by welcoming migrants or refugees into our structures... A recent European training course, organised by Concordia in July 2019, brought together several organisations to discuss the radicalisation of young people and the polarisation of our societies. We had already looked at the Human Library tool , which we wanted to explore further in this project and link with the Theatre of the Oppressed. In order to build a harmonious society, it is important to deepen our intercultural skills and to be able to transmit to young people, through relevant activities, tools for reflection on discrimination, their own stereotypes and openness to others. We consider it necessary to raise awareness of the importance of integrating refugees. This has positive impacts for the refugees themselves but also for the host society which benefits from their personal and professional skills and is enriched by their cultural differences. We wanted to have a specific audience, made up of youth workers, in contact with migrants and migrant/refugee people who are active in their communities or in partner associations, in order to have a diversity of views and exchanges as possible. The main objective was therefore to train the participants in specific tools as well as in a theoretical background in order to have a relevant approach on these issues with young people. We thus have two complementary training courses. The trainings alternated more theoretical modules centred on interculturality, migration theories and notions of emancipation with experiential learning modules on the tools of the Human Library and the Theatre of the Oppressed. The first, hosted by FREE&REAL, focused on interculturality and migration with the contribution of the Human Library tool. The second one, hosted by Concordia South-East, focused on radicalization and polarization of our societies and awareness raising tools with the contribution of the Theatre of the Oppressed. The combination of these two tools of emancipation and awareness-raising, with a theoretical background (sociology, history, reality of migratory facts, post-colonial studies...) has aroused great interest among the partner associations who wish to acquire innovative and transferable methods in their national context and their daily work. More specifically, we wanted to: -raise awareness of the social and economic challenges faced by refugees and, more generally, by migrants in their host society in order to deconstruct stereotypes -to provide a space for testimony and exchange between youth workers from different countries and refugees -to develop the intercultural skills of youth workers, youth professionals and migrants - to transmit two concrete tools for emancipation and awareness raising applicable in the national contexts of the participants -to exchange good practices of each organisation in terms of work on the theme of migration and the construction of a humanist society -to enable the creation of a network between the members of these associations

Project partners (8)