By implementing the project, we aimed to respond in a consistent and collaborative way to the social exclusion of young MRD, particularly young Ukrainians, while creating a response that would also be useful for the future work of the organisations involved. The project was designed around three core pillars: Positive Psychology, Nonviolent Communication and Intercultural Education. We wanted to generate local and transnational evidence on the mechanisms of exclusion and integration experienced by young MRD, strengthen the capacities of teams and youth workers to intervene more effectively, co-create a practical, participatory and evidence-based methodology, involve young people as co-creators of solutions, and increase the engagement of stakeholders and communities by promoting more inclusive attitudes and practices. We also wanted to ensure that the project results would continue beyond its formal duration through dissemination of the methodology and by strengthening organisations’ capacity to keep supporting these young people in the future.
We applied for this project because the consortium identified an increasingly visible social problem in our contexts: the social exclusion of young migrants, refugees and displaced people (MRD), aggravated by the war in Ukraine and by the integration difficulties many of these young people still face in host countries. The needs we aimed to address were multiple: strengthening networking among organisations and stakeholders; raising awareness of Nonviolent Communication, Intercultural Education and Positive Psychology; developing rigorous, innovative and inclusive intervention tools; supporting the youth sector’s response to the war in Ukraine; and promoting European values, participation and inclusion. At the same time, the project was built on the conviction that these young people should be seen not only as recipients of support, but also as active participants in building solutions. We applied for Embrace because we believed it was necessary to turn a shared concern into collaborative, structured and useful action.