Europe and other regions of the world are facing today a demanding challenge – economic and forced migration, such as refuges, are putting in our society and communities a huge pressure. We believe nevertheless that we can create more resilient communities to such changes and that migration and in particular young migrants and refuges can be an added value for the development of our countries and communities. For these reason 8 organizations active on the field of youth work from Portugal, Netherlands, Cabo Verde, Finland, Greece, Guiné-Bissau, Sweden and Kenya 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 and refuges. 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 and refuges to influence policy at local and regional level;B) To empower local organizations staff to better involve young migrants and refuges in the decision making process of their programmes and activities;C) To increase the political influence of young migrants and refuges 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 and refuges;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 integration.During the 18 month of the project duration the partners will jointly implement an international seminar “Build: resilient communities together with young migrants and refugges”; a training course for youth workers: “Together enhancing the participation of young migrants and refuges”. Will develop open education resources such as a tool-kit on engagement of young migrants and refuges in local community development. 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.
The PRSD Network and its partners (ASANTE-Greece, SDDA-Sweden, ADYNE-Netherlands, Puntland Community-Finland, ANDSJ-Cape Verde, TCHINTCHOR-Guinea-Bissau and IYCS-Kenya) provided their experts and some elements from their group to compose the steering committee team to assume the leadership and coordination of the BUILDING project. Through the feedbacks from the team and participants involved we saw that the objectives of BUILDING were successfully achieved. Since begin the plan designed and efforts involved by the steering committee and conversations between the partners in the project were important, to work on a demanding challenge – economic and forced migration, such as huge refuges pressures, are putting in our society and communities. All the partners and participants involved in building activities highlighted that this project was important for young refugees, youth leaders and immigrant youth workers to intervene in various international social contexts affecting immigrants and refugees at local, national and international context, present some of the main intercultural constraints of current existing actions aimed at raising the skills of young migrants, refugees and immigrant youth workers, taking as a reference the current social division of labor in Europe and Africa and compare the relations established on social movements on social responsibility in both continents.The team based their works from the aims of this project which, allowed 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 and refuges. At the same time, the BUILDING focuses also gave more capacity building of youth leaders from migrant communities and young refugees groups to improve the approach of integration policies and develop the capacity of stakeholders to be able to deal with the emerging challenges and to transform them into social and economical growth and development opportunities for our communities and be more active on the field of youth work.The team did everything to ensure the achievement of all the objectives of project as develop essential intercultural and social competencies to work with immigrant groups and way to increase the capacity of NGOs working with young migrants and refuges to influence policy at local and regional level, empower local organizations staff to better involve young migrants and refuges in the decision making process of their programmes and activities, increase the political influence of young migrants and refuges in their communities and regions, 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, develop instruments that can support NGOs that need to start working with young migrants and refuges, support the integration and the development of a sense of belonging of young migrants in their host communities and increase the level of the business sector involvement in migrant youth integration.During the 18 months of the BUILDING the partners implemented successfully international seminar “Build: resilient communities together with young migrants and refugees” in Portugal in November 2018; a training course for youth workers: “Together enhancing the participation of young migrants and refuges” in September 2018 in Cape Verde and Job Shadowing in 2019. These activities, including local activities developed by partners allowed to develop education resources as way to engage more young migrants and refuges in local community development and gave at local level a significant impact with the implementation of training course, local youth initiatives and development of the action plans for integration of young migrants.