Youth Volunteer Educators e-learning Program Erasmus Project

Project Title

Youth Volunteer Educators e-learning Program

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Integration of refugees; Open and distance learning

Project Summary

Young Volunteer Educators e-Learning Program (e-VELP) enables young migrants/refugees to create and offer free workshops where they share their knowledge and culture with local communities. e-VELP is beyond a classic e-learning platform. Its aim is not only to teach migrant/refugee youth new skills but also to create and expand a live and active community of migrant/refugee youth passionate to share knowledge (Volunteer Educators) and youth workers passionate to support them (Volunteer Educator Trainers).

The system change objective of e-VELP is to introduce and promote the new role of Volunteer Educator (VE) in the civil-society non-formal educational system.

According to the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), over one million people sought refuge in the EU in 2015, a fivefold increase from the year before. The majority of the first-time asylum applicants in 2015 were young people. A significant portion of this group is low-skilled although highly motivated (Konle-Seidl 2016). Despite their high motivation, the migrants have lower rates of employment than EU nationals (Eurostat 2015).

Additionally, 2015/16 witnessed an extreme politicisation of immigration in several EU Member States. In the past years, a new wave of right-wing/far-right political groups have emerged and their support is growing at a rapid pace (Polakow-Suransky 2016). This growth is fueled by the rising number of locals who have not been in direct contact with refugees/migrants and hence have fears/misconceptions about them. The FRA has reported that “migrants/refugees, faced racism and ethnic discrimination in 2015”.

Social researchers have proven that discrimination and prejudice can be reduced through personal contact/exchange with people of different backgrounds/cultures (Stangor 2014).

By bringing locals and young refugees/migrants on eye-level, direct contact in the context of free knowledge-sharing, e-VELP aims to reduce the fear/misconceptions among locals against foreigners and ease refugee/migrant youth integration in the society and job market.

From language and culture to professional skills and hobbies, many people, especially the youth, are not aware of how valuable their knowledge and life experiences can be for someone else. Through participating in e-VELP online course and offline activities as well as getting personal guidance and support, young migrants/refugees identify their valuable skills/knowledge and learn how to transfer their knowledge in a workshop format. They offer their workshops for local organisations (non-profits, educational institutes etc.).

By offering personal workshops for local communities, young refugees/migrants are equipped with skills, confidence, networks, and experiences which they require in order to find a job and to integrate in the society. Additionally, their workshop participants not only learn new topics but also get to know presenters from culturally diverse backgrounds and build an understanding of and openness for different cultures.

During this project we will develop the e-VELP platform. The platform will contain two online courses for the project’s two target groups – young migrants/refugees and youth workers. The online course for VEs will include e-learning elements and supplementary offline activities, such as trainings/workgroups and meetups. The VE-Trainer course is designed to train youth workers to assist young refugees/migrants in their journey to become VEs

The e-VELP platform will include features for support, collaboration, as well as exchange of teaching material and experiences. VE-Trainers will be provided features for implementing support activities for VEs including: online support, organizing offline trainings/workgroups/meetings. In order to serve the project’s system change objective and promote the role of VE, the platform will contain visibility features for showing and sharing the progress and achievements of VEs.

In order to evaluate e-VELP with both target groups, we will have 1 blended mobility for young refugees/migrants and 1 staff training for youth workers. During these trainings, 30 young refugees/migrants will participate in e-VELP and offer 60 workshops. 12 youth workers will join the program and start supporting VEs.

The final release of the e-VELP will be launched and promoted through our dissemination activities. We will have 6 Multiplicator Events. During these events, we will invite local/national stakeholders and stakeholders from European countries not represented in this consortium, assuring EU-wide outreach for the e-VELP. Only over the direct network of the participating organisations we estimated to disseminate the project results to 260.000 individuals, 300 youth organisations or educational institutes, 50 national/EU/international networks related to youth/non-formal/formal education. 3500 young migrants/refugees are estimated to be trained as VEs, 1 year after end of this project.

Project Website

http://www.teachsurfing.org/blog/e-velp

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 233491 Eur

Project Coordinator

TEACHSURFING GEMEINNUTZIGE UG (HAFTUNGSBESCHRANKT) & Country: DE

Project Partners

• CESIE
• CSI CENTER FOR SOCIAL INNOVATION LTD
• VILNIAUS UNIVERSITETAS
• VEREIN MULTIKULTURELL
• ASOCIATIA GEYC