SEMINAR ‘NAVIGATE YOU(TH)’ - Building bridges for the inclusion of young people with a migrant background in local communities

Context and background for this seminar

Youth work wants to be inclusive and to bring equal opportunities to all young people. Everyone matters, no youngster should be excluded from participating in youth work activities. Youth work wants to be a safe space where each youngster can feel at home together with other peers, experiment and learn through trial and error and explore own interests and talents, supported by youth workers in this personal and social development.

It should not be taken for granted that youth work is always inclusive. Often special efforts are needed to create access to youth opportunities for young people that would otherwise remain excluded. This is in particular the case for young people with a migrant background (i.e. those who are born abroad, or whose parents are). Often they are not participating in youth work. And this for many reasons:  they are not familiar with youth work, don’t have information about the existing local youth offer (e.g. youth centers, youth movements, cultural and art initiatives, sports, …), face financial or language obstacles, are newcomers in the local community, ...

In addition youth organisations are not always aware of or prepared for the specific needs, concerns and obstacles these youngsters and their environment (eg. parents) might have.

Navigate You(th) as a tool for building bridges

Active and tailored-made support is needed to get them involved in youth work and to make a solid connection between young people and youth organisations. This is what the Role Models Initiative* Navigate You(th) is all about, an initiative set up by JINT (National Agency Belgium-Flanders) in close partnership with 2 organisations:

• PIN, a social economy organisation who supports local municipalities, through a network of ‘role models in diversity’ (experts by experience who used to be newcomers themselves), in supporting newcomers in their social integration;
• Tumult, a youth organisation working on the social integration of youngsters with fewer opportunities, such as young people with a migrant background, through youth work.

* As a follow-up of the Paris Declaration on Promoting citizenship and the common values of freedom, tolerance and non-discrimimation through education (2015), the European Commission proposed in 2018 to the National Agencies for Erasmus+ Youth to set up within their training strategy a role models network to promote social inclusion and prevent exclusion and radicalization.

What do we want to achieve in this seminar?

In this international seminar we want to share the practice, methods and learning outcomes of Navigate You(th) and other similar initiatives in Belgium-Flanders who work on involving young people with a migrant background in youth work and pool expertise with other similar practices throughout Europe.

‘If you don’t know what youth work is, then you don’t know what you miss. And for sure you don’t know how to get involved or how powerful youth work is.’  - role model in Navigate You(th)

In the last 3 years Navigate You(th) has developed and implemented a successful step-by-step approach to lead young people with a migrant background towards youth work: from tailored-made information on the existing local youth work offer to personal coaching and follow-up, from support to parents in understanding the value of youth work to involving local municipalities as partners. Navigate You(th) actively involves in the different steps a committed role models network of ‘experts by experience' (coaches who have themselves a migrant background and used to be newcomers in Belgium) and young volunteers with youth work experience. 

Aims and objectives

This seminar brings together 20 people from all over Europe who foster the inclusion of young people with a migrant background in local communities through youth work activities. We aim to create a space for learning about approaches that youth work and youth policy use for supporting young people with a migrant background to participate in youth work. 

More specifically we want:

• To develop a common understanding of the role and value of youth work for social inclusion of young people with a migrant background.
• To explore challenges and needs for social inclusion of young people with a migrant background in the local contexts and identify good practices and approaches for responding to these challenges in a youth work context.
• To share and support own practices, expertise and projects that build bridges between young people with a migrant background and youth work, as an inspiration for future local and European youth projects.

Who are we looking for? 

We are looking for 20 participants. Join us if you ...

• are working, directly or indirectly, on the social inclusion of young people with a migrant background (e.g. in a youth organisation, local municipality, asylum center, …);
• are motivated to build bridges between young people with a migrant background and youth work organisations;
• are minimum 18 years old;
• are able to work in English in order to establish effective communication during the seminar; 
• optional: have own experience to share on navigating young people with a migrant background towards youth work and youth activities.

Please note that the seminar will not be about creating new forms of youth work for young people with a migrant background, but about building bridges between the youngsters and existing youth work activities! 

Programme flow  

The seminar will start on Monday 8 November 2021 after lunch and will end on Friday 12 November 2021 at lunch time.

This seminar is a space for learning about approaches and good practices. The learning outcomes of the project Navigate You(th) are the frame of this seminar. We will use a diversity of non-formal education methods to explore the different topics. The programme will be adapted to the needs, expertise and good practices of the selected participants. 

See attached draft programme 

Corona Proof measurements 

The activity is planned to be residentially hosted in November 2021 in Brussels. In case the COVID-19 situation prevails and prevents travelling, the organiser reserves the right to cancel the residential activity and will look into the options of organising the activity either in blended form or online.

The organiser will follow and apply all COVID-19 health and safety guidelines which are valid by the time of the seminar. All selected participants will need to be able to show the European digital corona certificate (EUDCC). All participants will be accommodated in single rooms. More information will be provided to the selected participants.