Youth e-perspectives on migration Erasmus Project

Project Title

Youth e-perspectives on migration

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 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Access for disadvantaged; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

Youth e-Perspectives on Migration is one of our favorite projects. Why? Because it is about young people, digital skills and media literacy, about refugees and migration, mutual understanding, history and future. All at the same time.
This strategic partnership was designed as a response to the current refugee crisis in Europe and the fact that young people need up-to-date digital and media literacy skills to be able to use digital technologies to address the social issues around them. It is based on the experience of the three organisations working in the field (MAKS vzw, El Teb and Telecentar) in running digital skills trainings for young people. The idea came from the realisation that young people should be empowered to be active players in current societal issues, in particular the current refugee crisis, and that digital technologies can help them better understand the issues, engage and look for solutions. The idea was to create a methodology for a short training course combining digital photography, storytelling and online platforms. The topic was migration and the refugee crisis. So, what does the methodology include?
Find
Young participants learned different ways to “find” a story. An online magazine on refugees and migration was created with FlipBoard, combining and comparing different sources of information. Participants then learned how to make a story through photography. They visited a refugee facility and took interviews from representatives of organisations working with refugees on the field.
Tell
With all this experience as a background, they then worked on their own personal digital stories related to migration. And guess what!? They all had one! Together they applied what they had learned to create a picture of migration, reflecting on how they see it through their own eyes.
Act
Last, but not least, they learned about the digital opportunities to raise awareness and start an initiative online, using for example social media platforms not only for posting pictures of their whereabouts, but bringing their friends’ attention to something meaningful. They learned to write a blog and express their ideas.
Thus, they approached the topic from many different perspectives, at the same time acquiring valuable technical and digital skills such as video editing, sound and video recording, using advanced features of professional cameras, or their mobile devices.

This was not all done during the 6-day training in Croatia, but also through online collaboration through the project training platform, facebook group and google shared drives.

The project has 3 phases. During the 1st phase, partners developed the draft training methodology basically combining the three workshops (Digital Photography, Digital Storytelling and Online Platforms) and established the online platform. In parallel, we looked into our experience, reflected on it and developed a handbook for youth engagement, which help us to reach and attract youth, and can also help other organisations who (want to) work with this target group. It’s a very practical document.
Then partners selected the young people for the training and organised preparatory sessions for the selected participants.

Phase 2 is the blended training, where the methodology was tested with 25 young people. The training consisted of up to 4 preparatory f2f meetings at local level with each national group of 8 young people; 6-days of face-to-face training and follow-up activities on the online platform. There was an online screening of the video stories that the young people finalised back home. Upon completion of the training, young people with support & mentoring from the partner organisations at the local level organised peer-to-peer info events in their city, where they demonstrated what they have learned and created.

In the final stage of the project, we took stock of our experience during the training and updated the methodology to make the different parts work better together. Based on our experience, we also developed the Guidelines for other organisations.

Results and impact
The main expected results of the project are increased digital and civic competences of the young people and their understanding of migration and the refugee crisis, as well as the enriched skills of the facilitators. The project increased not only their knowledge on using digital media, equipping them with new skills, which will help them to express themselves and address the problems around them in a critical and constructive way, but it also improved their analytic, personal and intercultural skills, and most of all, their self-confidence and mutual respect.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 81750 Eur

Project Coordinator

TELECENTRE-EUROPE AISBL & Country: BE

Project Partners

• Telecentar
• ASSOCIACIO PER A JOVES TEB
• Media Actie Kuregem Stad