Objectives of the YVM project were - to explore fields and options of political and social participation of immigrants - to build capacity among providers of political education and enable them to develop new and high quality education offers for internationals on democratic life and values - to pave the way to more active, motivated and better informed new citizens in Europe through tailored political education offers, participative activities, and personal experience The projects overall goal was to make immigrants develop a sense of responsibility for their surroundings and to allow them to experience self-efficacy in their host societies. The active participation of all members of a society is an important precondition for "social cohesion" - which is a long-term aim of the project. As part of this ERASMUS+ project, the partners also added a European goal to the project. Participants of the project and staff of the project partners could collaboratively explore options of political participation on the European level, organising among other things study visits to Brussels and Strasbourg and arranging meetings with political stakeholders like Members of the European Parliament or representatives of European Institutions.
People with migration backgrounds are usually underrepresented in political environments, those without a citizenship of their host country are even not allowed to vote or become a member of political parliaments and bodys. Still, there is a large number of possibilities for immigrants to become politically and socially active. The project Your voice matters (YVM) has explored such options and made them visible. In this European project, the partners Support Group Network (SGN) from Sweden and Volkshochschulverband Baden-Württemberg (vhs BW) from Germany, representing adult education centres from the Bundesland Baden-Württemberg, addressed their international learners' interest in political and social participation at the local, regional, national, and European level. Together with the target group of immigrants they designed empowerment and political education offers dedicated to adult immigrants, using co-creative methods andmaking use of experiences of the newcomers. SGN and vhs BW both have many immigrants among their clients, e g as learners in language and integration classes. With YVM outputs, the partners added educational content on democractic life and values to their usual training offers and multiplied the effects.