Project about refugees

Our project is focused on a 7-day youth exchange on the refugee crisis, as it is recorded –mainly within the European Union countries during the last 2 years. This youth exchange will give the opportunity to 30 people from 6 different European countries to be educated, share their knowledge and elaborate on a topic which is extremely crucial nowadays and which is the refugee crisis.

After a first introduction into its causes and its dimensions, into the numbers of refugees that pass every day the sea borders of the Mediterranean countries seeking for asylum, as well as the different reactions of the several European countries towards the refugee crisis, the youth exchange will bring participants in touch with local organizations and international NGOs that fight pro refugee rights and provide refugees, being in Italy, with humanitarian aid. Thus, the project will focus and elaborate more on the notions of human rights of refugee populations and the discrimination and racism that they are facing within the European Union countries, as well as the “cultivation” of exclusionary practices within the local communities. In order to raise the empathy of the participants towards refugee populations the youth exchange will include the implementation of the human library methodology, in which refugees will be used as “living books”.

Moreover, emphasis will be given in recording the way mass media in each country have reported the refugee crisis and how this approach has influenced the public opinion in a positive or negative way.

Finally, the youth exchange will give the participants the floor to work on their own ideas about efficient practices and methodologies, of social inclusion of refugees into the contemporary society.

Expectations from the project

Increase the empathy of the participants towards the refugee issue and populations.
Inform and educate the participants about the refugee issue, the human rights and the refugee law framework
Make participants aware of the importance of the refugee crisis and “turn” them into active stakeholders of their local communities
Create a team of activated people, who do really want to do something about refugees into their local communities and who will consist a strong network of people
Give participants the chance to share good practices and their experience upon the confrontation of the racism and xenophobia in a local/national and international level.
Help participants understand how they can use “tools”, such as mass media, in order to promote and protect the human rights and the goals of their NGOs.
Expectations from the partners

- Promotion of the project in the local community

- Filling up participant registration form for each participant

- Participating in skype meetings

- Support and preparation of participants prior to arrival (flights, national evening, insurance etc)

- Conducting research about how the media covered the refugee crisis which will be presented in the youth exchange

- Post exchange evaluation

- Writing an article and promoting the project in the partner country.

- Dissemination of the results with other partner organizations.