Migrant Youth Friendly Cities

The project addressed the need for effective integration of young migrants, young refugees, and youth with migrant backgrounds into local communities across Europe. The project leveraged the youth work sector's potential to provide innovative and integrated solutions for accessible information and services. By fostering collaborations between municipalities and various stakeholders, we aimed to share best practices and develop efficient strategies for more inclusive policy-making, overcoming challenges related to legal, socio-economic, and socio-cultural integration of target groups into decision-making. This initiative was driven by the recognition that in a multicultural society, valuing differences enhances national cohesion and civic engagement and prioritises equity, aiming to improve the overall framework for integration at the local level. The project tackled the “grey area” in the youth work with young migrants at the European level by sharing and exchanging the added value of integration within local communities in different countries and, therefore, recognizing the common benefit of active participation in society of young migrants, young refugees and youth with migrant background.

To achieve the ambitious goals, we followed the objectives: - Map and identify good practices on the integration of youth with migrant backgrounds, young refugees and young migrants at local level with an integrated approach that considers different indicators (legal, socio-economic, and socio-cultural integration) and different stakeholders (local authorities, CSOs, NGOs, youth workers); - Develop quality indicators that will allow local authorities to assess the impact of good practice on migrant and refugee integration; - Create an instrument (an assessment tool for “Migrant Youth Friendly City”) that enables local authorities, together with CSOs, NGOs and youth workers, to evaluate their integration policies. Furthermore, develop Guidelines containing the actions that local authorities will undertake in order to make their policies more “Migrant Youth Friendly”. These tools are accessible to everyone and are meant to be used even after the period of the project implementation; - Encourage active citizenship of youth with migrant backgrounds, young migrants and young refugees, actively involving them in the project, developing their sense of belonging at the local level and promoting participation in decision-making processes

The activities carried out within this project included: - Transnational Partners Meetings: Three in-person meetings were organized in Portugal, Sweden and Greece, focusing on project management, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. The partners were meeting to discuss the project's progress and set the next steps. - Learning, Teaching, Training Activities: Two Training Courses were implemented: "Integration policies at local level" in Spain and "Migrant Youth Friendly Cities: a scale of Reference" in Portugal. These activities supported the content produced for the project results. They involved a diverse group of participants, including municipality workers in the fields of youth and/or integration, youth workers or representatives of a CSO/NGO active in integration, and young migrants or young people with a migrant background. - Development of a publication: Handbook on Models and Strategies of Integration at Local Level - This publication maps practices, strategies, and policies for migration issues at the local and municipality level of the countries participating in the project, namely Portugal, Sweden, Spain, and Greece. It is available online in English in PDF format. - Development of the Assessment Tool “Migrant Youth Friendly City” - a practical tool for municipalities to better understand their integration policies, methods, and strategies. It enables them to analyse how these policies can be adapted, improved, or maintained to facilitate the integration of young migrants, young refugees, and youth with a migrant background. It is available online in PDF format in English, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish and Greek. - Development of the Guidelines “Migrant Youth Friendly City” - a complementary document to the Assessment Tool "Migrant Youth Friendly Cities" (IO2) and contains policy guidelines for municipalities on how to rank higher and be friendlier to all young migrants, young refugees and youth with a migrant background. It is available online in PDF format in English, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish and Greek. - Each partner organised a Local Seminar for 25 participants to disseminate the Intellectual Outputs, raise awareness about the project, and identify new municipalities for the implementation of the tool and guidelines. These seminars ensured the project and its results were communicated effectively within each partner's country to the relevant groups and stakeholders. - The concluding event in the form of a Final Conference involved project coordinators and representatives of CSOs/NGOs involved in the Transnational Project Meetings, plus more than 200 stakeholders from the host country (Greece). The Final Conference served as an international platform for the presentation of the publication (IO1), the assessment tool (IO2), and the guidelines (IO3).

Following the project's plan for the Intellectual Outcomes, the project has three main outcomes: A Publication: Handbook on Models and Strategies of Integration at Local Level(IO1) compiled best practices and models of integration at the local level. This served as a resource for municipalities across European countries, providing inspiration for the formulation of innovative and creative integration policies and strategies, and also as a base for the following intellectual outputs. An assessment tool named “Migrant Youth Friendly Cities” (IO2) was developed with the collaboration of all partner organisations and the involvement of the project's target groups. This tool enabled municipalities to evaluate the level of integration of young migrants, young refugees, and youth with migrant backgrounds within their communities. It considered a variety of indicators, including legal, economic, and cultural aspects. The tool underwent testing during the project and was made available in the languages of the partner countries. This facilitated a better understanding by municipalities across Europe of their integration processes and their standing on the migrant youth friendly scale. One of the tool's objectives was not only to assess the current situation but also to aid in the creation of guidelines for enhancing and developing local integration policies. These efforts aimed to empower the target groups—young migrants, young refugees, and youth with migrant backgrounds—to overcome resource limitations and lack of access to recruitment networks, thereby enabling their active participation in society and decision-making processes at the local level, even beyond the project's completion. A set of guidelines for the implementation of the “Migrant Youth Friendly Cities” assessment tool (IO3) was developed as a result of the tool's testing phase. These guidelines are intended to assist municipalities in effectively applying the tool and provide them with a set of actions they can take to score higher by improving the integration practices and policies.