For active and global citizenship – against youth social exclusion Erasmus Project

Project Title

For active and global citizenship – against youth social exclusion

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 Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; Migrants’ issues; Inclusion – equity

Project Summary

The project was launched for finding and piloting new ways for tackling social exclusion of young people especially with migration background. Both in Spain and Finland, the risk of social exclusion or poverty is high for foreign-born youth (53,9 % and 50 %, respectively). The project aimed at empowerment of the youth towards active and global citizenship. In order to bridge the gap between locals and newly arrived immigrants, the schools developed a participatory operating model for advancing social integration of young people. In Joensuu the objective culminated during a Cultures Together day, which was prepared together with students, immigrant youngsters and local cooperation organizations as a part of long-term network building launched in the project. The model was adapted and piloted also in Pamplona. Cooperation with local community and organizations as well as students’ and immigrant youth’s active participation and responsibility over carrying out the activities were central approaches in the project. The logic of the project followed participatory action –research method, which was used in developing the integration model, preparation of pedagogical material and guiding the peer activities.
The project was coordinated by Lyseo Upper Secondary School in Joensuu in partnership with IES eunate BHI in Pamplona. As the project had a strong emphasis on building cooperation with other local actors, a number of organizations and other actors participated.
Cooperation model in Pamplona connected the school with UNRWA (Palestinian question), Unidad de Barrio Txantrea and Ansoain, Sinarzubi and Ellacuria Foundation, ALBOAN and a network “Solidarity Schools” run by the Government of Navarre. In Joensuu, the school built cooperation networks with city of Joensuu (collection of information about immigration processes and projects, drama activities), JoMoni (NGO, provided background information and co-organized possibilities for hearing migrants’ life stories), City library (‘Multicultural library’-project, Joensuu city theatre (attending a play, discussions with the production team), North Karelia municipal education and training consortium (Riveria, preparatory class for immigrants) and Lukkarila homes (migrant housing).
The project involved a great number of activities both during and between the mobilities. Locally, a lot of effort was put into building cooperation networks for mutually beneficial cooperation and creating models that were operational for locals and newly arrived migrants alike. The aim of the activities was to create possibilities for meeting and interaction between young people as well as to provide information about migration both from institutional and personal points of view.
During the project, young people were in a key position to find out needs and wishes related to different actions aiming to social integration of the immigrants. Regular peer activities took place in Joensuu (meetings in library, event planning, game meetings…) and Pamplona (visits to NGOs, dance classes, games…). The activities included both instructed workshops and more non-formal meetings where young people discussed given topics independently in groups consisting of students of partner organizations and immigrants. Local organizations working with migrants were visited, and background information about migration process collected. The information was then compared during learning, teaching and training activities.
In the course of the project the teachers prepared pedagogical material based on the experiences of leading workshops, visits, other project activities as well as the knowledge gained during the project. Pedagogical insight was also shared with organziations working with migrants.
To offer a possibility to as wide a participation as possible, the project involved a different group of students from the participating organizations each year. After the first year, the project activities were revised according to the feedback collected previously and developed accordingly. Most of the migrants and asylum seekers were willing to participate throughout the project, and the number of participants grew as the project proceeded.
Educational content on the basis of NGO and other local cooperation was created countinuously during the project. The method for content creation was participatory research (preliminary survey, feedback, revision of plans, correction, action). The approach was based on a problem based and phenomena based learning and digital learning environments.
As a result of this project, the multicultural awareness and motivation to act as an active and global citizen increased among the students, immigrants, students as well as the partner organizations. The local stakeholder organizations have expressed their willingness to continue common workshops and meetings with students which was started in the project as integrated part of their regular activities.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 37150 Eur

Project Coordinator

Joensuun lyseon lukio & Country: FI

Project Partners

• IES eunate BHI