The Covid-19 has a significant impact on youth including mental health concerns, loneliness, isolation; challenges in family relationships, and education. The situation is much heavier for young refugees. UN refugee agency says that the consequences of COVID-19 for them are felt on many levels which result in stress, anxiety, and outbreaks of violence. Also, they lack social and psychological support from educational institutions. It is the most important time for youth organizations to support young people, in particular young refugees, especially for educational processes. For this, youth workers need to develop specific skills, learn new methods with the support of competent and cooperative youth organizations. Art helps stimulate creativity, it is a vector of social cohesion and allows people in need or difficulty to express themselves. Also, digital tools are the key elements for inclusion under the pandemic situation. Within this context, the objectives of our project are: -foster the process of developing decision making, team working, communication, interaction, anti-fragility, creativity, process management skills of youth workers -foster community-based rehabilitation and anti-fragility approaches among youth workers and the cultural&creative sector grassroots organizations -promote resilience/antifragility of youth workers and associations, to face the global crisis and transform it into an opportunity -develop and strengthen the digital, anti-fragility, artistic, cooperative, management, and creative skills of partner associations, strengthen cooperation among them -promote non-formal education methods, creativity, art, and digitalism in youth work to build an inclusive educational environment for young refugees -promote active citizenship, inclusion and foster creativity, culture, and multiculturalism among young people through art and digital tools -raise awareness on refugee and pandemic issues in the community The project is led by a consortium made of 6 organizations in 5 countries (Italy, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, Turkey). Participants: - 12 youth workers (2 refugees) aged 18-30 (direct target group) - 80 Young people (28 refugees) in the activities. Beneficiaries and stakeholders: municipalities, NGOs working with refugees/youth/migrants, local communities. Planned intellectual outputs (IO): -IO1: Manual of Best Practices -IO2: MigrART Toolkit Methodology: To design and implement the project, we used the project management cycle approach and the logical framework. For the activities and the production of IOs, we will use the community-based rehabilitation approach, anti-fragility concept, participatory design methods. Local activities and all trainings will be based on informal and non-formal education. Activities: -Preparation and publication of Manual of Best Practices (IO1) and MigrART Toolkit (IO2) -Production of artistic outputs for a booklet on the topic “Isolation/Community”: Covid-19 from migrants, refugees and young people’s point of view, and videos to explain and illustrate the artistic output -Thanks to a QR-code, a connection between the artistic output of the booklet and video explanation on YouTube -The group built by young people will do teamwork to create a message for the community and design graffiti to be created in the local area -Production of a short film to tell the story of the project and the stories of the participants -Creation the 4 graffiti and link to the short film thanks to a QR code -Dissemination - MigrART Exhibition of Murales (multiplier event) Results/Impact/Long-term Benefit: -a new method developed for the inclusion of young refugees in educational environments/processes, -trained youth workers who are able to use the Community Based Rehabilitation method and anti-fragility approach for social inclusion, especially in educational processes, -increased digital, anti-fragility, artistic, cooperative, management, and creativity skills of youth workers, -improved competence of youth workers to connect digital tools and art as a strategy to promote the process of inclusion, -4 inclusive groups constituted by young people from the refugee background and young people from the local areas, -trained 12 youth workers on using digital tools and art to create inclusive communities, -80 young people participated actively in the decision-making processes in a group by the CBR approach, -80 young people developed skills on art&digital tools, -more creative and inclusive young people (80) who use art&digital tools to express their backgrounds/cultures and support multiculturalism in the community, - more inclusive community constituted by all stakeholders - more anti-fragile partners work on inclusion, refugee issues, and young people that can transform the crisis into opportunities - increased digital, anti-fragility, artistic, cooperative, management, and creativity skills and solid/effective cooperation among partners.
With the project we aimed to: • promote creativity, art, and digitalism in youth work to build an inclusive educational environment for young refugees, • foster the process of development of decision making, team working, communication, interaction, anti-fragility, creativity, process management skills of youth workers • promote active citizenship, inclusion and foster creativity, culture, and multiculturalism among young people through art and digital tools • foster community-based rehabilitation and anti-fragility approaches among youth workers and the cultural and creative sector grassroots organizations/stakeholders, • raise awareness on refugee and pandemic issues in the community, • promote resilience of youth workers and associations, to face the global crisis raised from COVID-19 and transform it into an opportunity • develop and strengthen the digital, anti-fragility, artistic, cooperative, management, and creative skills of partner associations, and strengthen cooperation among them.
The project was designed to contribute to support young people, in particular young refugees, especially for educational processes during/after Covid-19 and related lockdown measures which had a significant impact on them including: Increased mental health/wellbeing concerns, loneliness, isolation Lack of safe space including not being able to access their youth service Challenging family relationships Challenges in education Due to isolation generated by lockdowns and social distancing measures, they needed social-psychological support from institutions working with them. To do this, youth workers needed to develop specific skills, learn new methods/approaches (Community Based Rehabilitation and Antifragility), and tools (art/creativity-digital) since art helps stimulate creativity, it is a vector of social cohesion; it allows people in need/difficulty to express themselves when they would not be able to do so via “traditional” communication channels. Disadvantaged groups suffer mostly for not having digital competencies needed to live and work as described in “Digital Education Action Plan”published by Eu Commission. Finally, youth organizations need to cooperate/ share experiences with each other and relevant stakeholders.