The major objectives of the project included (i) improving the skills of African parents in Europe when it comes to raising children in a Europe society, with an emphasis on their strengths as opposed to their weaknesses, (ii) make parents aware of the different activities that they engage in together and thereby improve parent-child relationship, and (iii) help parents increase, both in terms of frequency and quality, their participation in the wider community through assertive communication skills that include proactive communication with children’s school, among other things. In so doing, the project primarily targets parents of African origin who currently reside in Europe and intends to bring about a significant change in the ways these parents are raising their children and interacting with the larger community, which is apparently different from the kind of culture they come from. This, the project set out, results in better inclusion.
Observations and interviews with parents of African origin before preparing the project application indicated that they were mostly confined to a small circle of people of the same origin and did not show active participation in the broader society where they live now. This also had an impact on the way their children interacted with the community outside their immediate circles. Therefore, the project sought to equip parents of African origin in Europe with the skills and knowledge that they would need for a better inclusion in a European society where the culture is markedly different compared to their origin. Such skills and knowledge include assertive communication and children’s rights and education. Moreover, there was also a lack of organizations by Africans for Africans in Europe that can provide such workshops for African parents in the language and culture they understand so that they can easily grasp the skills and knowledge and further internalize them. In this regard, the project also sought to empower an African organization in Europe thereby providing the toolkits for offering such training for parents.