Today we face in Europe and in the world a demanding challenge – migration, is putting in our society a huge pressure. We believe nevertheless, that migration and in particular young migrants can be an added value for the development of our countries and communities. For these reason 9 organizations active on the field of youth work from Cabo Verde, Finland, Greece, Guiné Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé e Principe, Spain and Sweden have decided to develop a long term cooperation project.Our project aims to contribute to for the capacity building of youth workers from civil society organizations, particularly the ones working with young migrants and public authorities at local and regional level to be able to increase the success of their integration policies on young migrants. At the same time that focus also on the capacity building of youth leaders from migrant communities and young refugees groups. In order to reach our project aims we have defined the following specific objectives: A) To increase the capacity of NGOs working with young migrants to influence policy at local and regional level;B) To empower local organizations staff to better involve young migrants in the decision making process of their programmes and activities;C) To increase the political influence of young migrants in their communities and regions;D) To improve local and regional integration policies and the competences of local stakeholders to work together (multi stakeholders and cross sectorial initiatives) and with migrants in developing new programmes;E) To develop instruments that can support NGOs that need to start working with young migrants (proving support to new inflow of migrants);F) To support the integration and the development of a sense of belonging of young migrants in their host communities; G) To increase the level of the business sector involvement in migrant youth integrationH) To raise the level of awareness within the communities in Europe about the impact of human traffic, particularly addressing youth;During the 21 month of the project duration the partners will jointly implement an international seminar “Building from within: Improving integration and migration policies together with young migrants”; a training course for youth workers and youth leaders: “Together enhancing the participation of young migrants”. Will develop open education resources such as a manual/tool-kit on engagement of young migrants and will have an international conference. On the local level the project is foreseen to have a significant impact with the implementation of training course, local youth initiatives and development of the action plans for integration of young migrants. We believe that our project can definitely contribute for a different vision and approach into migration policy particularly addressing young migrants, where they are not viewed as a challenge but instead as a source of power, talents, and new energy for the receiving society.
Today we face in Europe and in the world a demanding challenge – migration, is putting in our society a huge pressure. We believe nevertheless, that migration and in particular young migrants can be an added value for the development of our countries and communities. For these reason 9 organizations active on the field of youth work from Cabo Verde, Finland, Greece, Guinéa Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé e Principe, Spain and Sweden have decided to develop a long term cooperation project.Our project aims to contribute to for the capacity building of youth workers from civil society organizations, particularly the ones working with young migrants and public authorities at local and regional level to be able to increase the success of their integration policies on young migrants. At the same time that focus also on the capacity building of youth leaders from migrant communities and young refugees groups. In order to reach our project aims we have defined the following specific objectives: A) To increase the capacity of NGOs working with young migrants to influence policy at local and regional level;B) To empower local organizations staff to better involve young migrants in the decision making process of their programmes and activities;C) To increase the political influence of young migrants in their communities and regions;D) To improve local and regional integration policies and the competences of local stakeholders to work together (multi stakeholders and cross sectorial initiatives) and with migrants in developing new programmes;E) To develop instruments that can support NGOs that need to start working with young migrants (proving support to new inflow of migrants);F) To support the integration and the development of a sense of belonging of young migrants in their host communities; G) To increase the level of the business sector involvement in migrant youth integrationH) To raise the level of awareness within the communities in Europe about the impact of human traffic, particularly addressing youth;The first part of project gave a voice to a growing part of the youth sector which has focused on inclusive participation of young migrants, particularly with few opportunities, and also offer the young ethnic leaders a platform to be able to contribute to political and civic participation in residence countries. The project from begin started with good communication and preparation between the partners. Since begin the contributions of the partner organizations in the selection and involvement of each participants and experts was very well planned and prepared This part of preparation was also important to prepare the ICT informations like build the website "http://www.youthsconnect.com/" facebook page "Connect Youth in Africa and Europe" and Twitter of project, design and print the roll-ups, banners, flyers and all the rest of promoted materials. The organizers also had the opportunity to launch the project in Dublin where many african and European organizations where presented in the international meeting.The second step was fundamental to achieved and conclude successfully all the activities designed in the project. The international conference, intercultural learning, job shadowing, mapping of local realities, toolkit and evaluation was achieved as well as dissemination and collaboration with peer organizations who work in similar space.The conference was fundamental to share the research results and learn from the panel of orators based on non formal education. The bilateral job shadowing was supportive and a learning advantage for youth migrants workers, with local best practices being shared and experiences gathered. The evaluation allowed for reflections and criticism as praises for efforts and sacrifices put into into the project. it was also linked with all steps of project that allow the partners and participants involved to cooperate and promote/publicity this project.