Building Inclusive Societies: exchanging innovative and good practices to empower local NGO's working with migrants and refugees

Background Ever since the humanitarian crises that started in 2015, the focus of Agora Aveiro shifted in the direction of human rights. At that time, we started implementing local initiatives to call attention to different issues when it comes to inclusion/discrimination and also, we were partners but also coordinators of numerous project KA1 on this topic. After gaining more experience around the topic, we felt we needed to learn more, and in a more structured and profound way, so a small scale partnership felt like right option for our needs at that time. We carefully organised a consortium in which every partner could learn something practical from each other and therefore improve their work. We applied for this project in 2020, in order to strengthen our organisations, widen our expertise and acquire new competences. As for Agora Aveiro, our main need was to get knowledge and practice on how to approach the topics in a more profound way than what we have been doing so far. Other partners needed to learn how to improve the involvement of local community in their projects, which Agora Aveiro has been doing successfully, but also to become more familiar with Erasmus+ and non-formal education methods in general. Objectives These were the objectives defined in the time of application, and they remained the same till the end: 1- exchanging specific theoretical & practical knowledge among participating organisations. Each organisation shared their knowledge and methodologies they use in their work with migrants and refugees and in the prevention of social exclusion. Our methods are different, but efficient in translatable to other communities facing discrimination and exclusion of different groups. 2- improving the capacities of partners by improving the skills and competencies of their staff/volunteers. Planned LTTs included participants that are employed or volunteering in participating organisations. Each partner prepared a personalised activity where skills and competencies related to specific methodologies were improved. Participants afterward started using some/all of the learned methodologies in their daily work. 3- raising awareness of the local communities about the difficulties/challenges newcomers face and influencing a broader audience to act towards building a more inclusive society (local communities, stakeholders, youth workers, volunteers in partner organisations) Implementation The project consisted of two transnational meetings, two short term joint staff training activities, two blended mobilities for young people, 12 in-house sharing sessions, and four spin-off activities. The main activities were: - "Citizen science for inclusive communities" led by Psychosocial Innovation Network - "Deliberative Workshop methodology for youth workers" led by Social Science Works. - "Youth leaders of change" led by Mentor - "Innovative Tools for Building Inclusive Communities" led by Agora Aveiro Besides transnational activities, each partner, after each activity organised an in-house session where they shared with their colleagues, volunteers, collaborators the main findings of the mobility activities and discussed the potential of using them in their organisation. After the four activities partners implemented an activity based on what was learned during the project, therefore in Agora Aveiro we used methods from Youth leaders for change to improve our volunteering program, in PIN they organised a Human Library and in Mentor they organised a guerrilla marketing awareness raising activity. In SSW they used the whole experience as an inspiration for a joint project proposal submitted in June 2023 under CERV. Achievements - 2 transnational meetings (5 pax each); - 52 mobilities with youth workers, partner NGOs staff, and long-term volunteers took part in 4 project activities, where pax gaining specific theoretical and practical knowledge and improving their skills and competencies as follows: 8 participants were trained in research-based activism, data-driven advocacy, and PFA; 8 pax trainer in Deliberation methodology; 12 junior pax from partner orgs trained in peer education and youth leadership in the context of social inclusion; 16 junior pax trained in using tools for fighting discrimination and building a more inclusive local communities (Human library, guerrilla marketing, Theatre of the oppressed). - 38 people took part in in-house sharing sessions; - 13 associated partners joined the project; - 4 human libraries organised, close to 200 pax; - 19 migrants/refugees participated in the Human Library events; - 3 guerrilla marketing activities organised during the project which reached up to 200 people both in the streets of Aveiro and Split; - Approx 550 pax informed offline about our project and the Erasmus+ programme; - Approx 30000 pax were reached with the information about the project via social media of 4 partners (approx 1600 per post).