Safe Haven Erasmus Project

Project Title

Safe Haven

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 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Migrants’ issues; Social dialogue; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

What can your organization do, if the government settles larger number of immigrants in your local community? The question that seemed like an exaggeration only a few years ago is an important concern in hundreds of cities across Europe today. When Europe was flooded by the last major migrant wave, it became evident that local environments and organizations there are poorly prepared for the situation itself, and above all for the consequences that followed: growing intolerance, the outburst of hate speech, sympathizing with radical idealists. The main reason behind was the lack of understanding of migration and the manipulative images in the media.

In the floods of negative publicity and politics of fear, one often forgets that successful integration is not only the responsibility of immigrants, but also the society itself needs to be adapted to it in all segments. Partners in the project agreed that we lack a quality tool for working with young people to address the problem of rising intolerance towards migration issues. Therefore we tackled this challenge comprehensively by combining the diverse experiences from various areas into the Safe Haven project in order to find innovative methods for addressing refugee-migrant issues among young people, most susceptible to social change, and other stakeholders in the local environment.

Safe Haven is a two-year strategic partnership project (February 2016 to February 2018), featuring four partners: Youth Center Trbovlje, Global Link from Great Britain, Stowarzyszenie Rozwoju and Integracji Młodzieży from Poland and Toplum Gönüllüleri Vakfı from Turkey. The partners entered the project with various experiences: the British and Turkish partners have extensive knowledge of migration and a direct contact with refugees and migrants, and the Polish and Slovenian partners have extensive experience in developing informal learning methods within youth sector. This diversity of experience and our field of work has led to the development of three independent but complementary intellectual results in the project that empower the youth sector in working with young people, working with the local community and working in the international environment.

The first result is a group experiential game The Suitcase, intended for young people 13-30. Its purpose is to increase understanding of the phenomenon of migration and the reasons behind it among young people, to promote empathy and intercultural dialogue. Through this game young people get to know the very concept of migration, explore the various causes for migration around the world and then find themselves in a situation where they have to flee their homeland. The second outcome is an intercultural Manual, which contains examples of good practices from the European environment in the field of strengthening intercultural dialogue – simple measures, financially unpretentious and transferable in different environments. The measures are suitable for organizations of the youth sector, associations, schools and other organizations or local communities that already experience (or might in the future) the arrival of a larger group of migrants, which can result in intolerance, hate speech and radicalization. The Manual for Building Community Support for Refugees and Migrants offers ideas on how to respond to new situations, featuring activities to raise awareness among young people, activities to work with children of migrants and refugees, actions for the general public and local communities, ways to communicate with decision makers and the media and the volunteering section. The purpose of the Manual is to help organizations of the youth sector or local communities to strengthen intercultural awareness in the local environment through the implementation of measures, strengthen the intercultural character of the place, identify and prevent early signs of intolerance that could lead to wider negative social phenomena. The third result is the international Network of 30 reliable and quality organizations that provide high quality international project work by addressing topics related to the project. The aim of the network is to establish and strengthen a permanent cooperation of organizations with the aim of transferring good practices. This intellectual output emerged as the explicit need of all participating partners for better quality partnerships, which are the key to successful projects and a guarantee for reducing project risks.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 62918 Eur

Project Coordinator

Mladinski center Trbovlje & Country: SI

Project Partners

• Stowarzyszenie Rozwoju i Integracji Mlodziezy
• GLOBAL LINK (LANCASTER)
• TOPLUM GONULLULERI VAKFI