Youth work organisations can be one of the important actors in the integration of young refugees. They offer opportunities for the young refugee to learn new competences, gaining self-confidence and a feeling of belonging in this new country. At the same time they can support awareness raising about refugees by working on connecting local communities with young refugees and as such strengthen acceptance and decrease xenophobia of the local communities towards ‘the unknown refugees’.

There are many initiatives going on to integrate young refugees. The challenge for youth work organisations is to not re-invent wheels, but connect successful initiatives and share and learn from each other.

This study visit is organised by four National Agencies: NA Belgium-FL (coordinating NA), NA Sweden (host), NA Belgium-FR and NA Norway. It wants to offer a space to 25 youth workers from the 3 involved countries to exchange good practices on a local level, learn from identified successful projects and each others experiences and bring back inspiration and new ideas for successful local projects back home that will benefit the integration of refugees.

Aim and Objectives:

This study visit aims at empowering and inspiring youth workers and others working or motivated to work directly with young refugees, newly arrived young migrants and/or asylum seekers to get them integrated in the local communities by sharing good practices and inspiration for new ideas and formulating concrete steps.

The objectives are:
– To reflect on the own local reality of integrating young refugees into local communities and identifying needs, challenges and good practices for working with young refugees.
– To exchange good practices (projects, methods, activities) of youth work in how to integrate young refugees into local communities
– To explore local good practices of Swedish youth organisations in how to integrate young refugees into local communities
– To get inspired and create own ideas for the integration of refugees within the own local youth work context and to formulate concrete next steps.
– To explore how Erasmus+ can be used as a tool for the integration of refugees.

The study visit fits into a pathway with different phases, set up by each involved NA:
1) National preparation meeting in January or February 2018 where the participants will get to know each other on local level and will be informed on the opportunities offered by the Erasmus+ Youth in Action programme and the European Solidarity Corps and on the support offered by the NA.
2) Study visit to Sweden in April 2018
3) Follow-up phase on national level by the NA: support in project development, offer other (international) training opportunities, …

This pathway allows the study visit to fully focus on sharing concrete good practices, getting inspiration and creating new ideas on how your youth work can contribute concretely to the development and integration of refugees. The study visit will not be directly focused on writing new project proposals, but will allow partner finding and developing first project ideas.

Profile of the participants:

You are …
– A youth worker, social worker or experience expert connected to a youth organisation, youth care institution, … working with or motivated to work directly with young refugees, newly arrived young migrants and/or asylum seekers
– Willing to share your challenges and good practices with other organisations.
– Motivated and able to implement new (international) projects in your local organisation for the integration of young refugees
– Experience with the Erasmus+ Youth in Action programme is not required.

More information?
– NA Belgium-FL: karlien.leroux@jint.be
– NA Sweden: ewa.bjork@mucf.se
– NA Belgium-FR: stephanie.nowakowski@cfwb.be
– NA Norway: gry.nesse@bufdir.no