Now, European countries are taking in people fleeing wars. The most vulnerable part is youth seeking social integration and career advancement but facing obstacles to the involvement into local community. Thus, the project addresses a need of better social adaptation of migrant youth that can be made by the strong network of youth organizations (NGOs + university) using new methodology of mixing non-formal and formal education tools for involvement across Europe. Current tools for migrant youth involvement are not underpinned by principles of networking and cooperation among youth organizations of various profiles. Local youth communities are not guided on how to put mutual efforts into adaptation of young migrants from a perspective of their social communication and career pathways. Project cross-sector network will disseminate best practices among various actors, expanding their understanding of diverse future and creating common vision of values of inclusiveness in education and society.Project teams from Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania require experience of adapting migrant youth had by partners from Georgia and Italy. All partners will benefit from shared EU values and expanded network with common EU vision. The methodological pillar of the project is a combination of expertise of various social actors from NGOs and university – young activists, teachers, students, sociologists, psychologists, managers and governors. This approach is new for the project topic of migrant youth involvement and expected to make project results more realistic and sustainable. Also, established network is expected to be more socially representative. Methodological choice proves the project slogan - Professional Diversity for Diverse Future. The project impact will be in outputs useful for all organizations focused on young migrants (NGOs, universities, youth councils and authorities) across countries: • the developed Toolkit for youth workers on how to involve youth migrants into civic society encapsulating practically proved methodology; • changed environment inside partner organizations by having made participants’ commitment to introducing good practices of migrant youth involvement; • established network of youth organizations undertaking activities for implementing youth policy aimed at diverse common future and launching intercultural dialogue. The project impact will be naturally sustained beyond its lifetime due to increasing social demand. Migrant youth adaptation is whether declared as a priority in social and youth policies of European countries or promoted by activists in emerging communities. Growing number of organizations will be involved in young migrants’ social inclusion and require networking, experience exchange, communicational e-platform and methodological support. The project will cover capacity building and mobility activities to provide the achievement of its goal.
The project’s primary goal was building partner organizations’ capacities for working with youth struggling from forced migration and involving them into local communities. Although we came up with the project’s idea almost 4 years ago, throughout the project’s lifetime, its topic has been still sharp and crucial. In feeling the project’s topicality for future years, despite COVID restrictions and fatal obstacles the project team faced, we worked hard in order to satisfy a youth need of better social adaptation while being migrants. We did it by introducing a new methodology allowing mixed non-formal and formal education into our partner organizations’ every day work. The tools for migrant youth involvement we were equipped with as we started the project were lacking a cross-sector methodology for NGOs-universities networks. Partner NGOs and academic bodies were not guided on ways of putting mutual efforts into adaptation of young migrants from the perspective of social communication and career pathway. Thus, in following our planned activities and taking decisions about their changes under the pressure of the pandemic, we managed to shape a strong network of youth organizations (NGOs + university) for involving migrant youth across Europe and countries of Eastern partnership. We strongly believe that after the project, the established network of organizations and activists provide necessary assistance and keep young migrants safe from the risk of radicalization and wrong life choices. This belief rests on the project’s direct fit with the objectives of participating organizations. In embracing now about 3,000 young migrants, the university partner seeked to mix formal education methods with non-formal tools provided by NGOs. The project gathered experienced representatives with various professional backgrounds working for NGOs and the university who launched intercultural dialogue, created migrant-focused sustainable youth networks and developed relevant methodology underpinned by a mix of non-formal and formal education tools. All this enhanced their personal and organizational capacities for better involvement of migrant youth into local communities. It is worth mentioning here that the project participants have made a true difference for themselves due to intercultural communication between young migrants and social activists.The most important outcome of the project maybe identified as shaping new friendly and tolerant environment for young migrants to be involved into local communities by helping some of them to avoid fears and believe in positive future in new society, training local youth activists to continue changing environment for better migrants’ adaptation and shaping a network ready to operate effectively. This main outcome could be produced by all the project participants due to the fact that we obeyed principles of innovative project methodology introduced as a pillar of all activities. Giving hope and support to hundreds of young migrants as a result of successful stories about new life shared by youngsters via the inspirational portal is also one of the main project outcomes. Unusual youth contributions across countries in “YOUth-to-YOUth” communication manner evoked faith and optimism about young migrants’ social activity, finding friends and following good career paths in other countries.Finally the project taught us to act under complete uncertainty and irresistible force. 3 years of projects instead of planned 2 because of the COVID pressure brought positive results. We learnt how to make fast changes with minimum losses and be resilient to challenges.