Migration Shaping Youth Work

Background

European societies are shaped, and continue to be shaped, by migration. While this is a reality, many societies struggle with accepting, acknowledging, recognising, appreciating and valorising it. In this seminar, we want to deepen the understanding of how societies are shaped by migration, engage with the lived realities of people experiencing structural barriers because of migration, and focus on the daily practices and realities of youth work.

The roots of this seminar lie in the belief that youth work, and using the European Programmes for youth in those places, have the potential to smoothen and support renegotiation and adjustment processes. They can help bridge gaps and improve connections. By bringing together youth workers and persons connected to the field of youth, we want to explore this potential and the conditions to realise it.

In the seminar, we want to use the lens of post-migrant societies. The concept doesn’t imply that migration has been or should be overcome, it rather describes the aftereffects and how migration shapes and reconfigures the present. The concept of post-migration uses a structural and societal perspective, while avoiding the trap of ‘us versus them’.

If you’re interested in more information, you can download the background document.

Aims and objectives

This seminar aims to deepen the understanding of societies shaped by migration and the role Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps can play in it. The objectives are to:

• Explore what it means to recognise societies as shaped by migration and the role youth work plays in it.
• Create a space for peer-learning opportunities on how to do youth work within the Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps programmes and at the same time including young people with experience with migration.
• Understand the accessibility of Erasmus+ and Erasmus Solidarity Corps for young people facing barriers within a society shaped by migration.
• Co-create a concrete outcome to make the knowledge in the seminar transferable to the field of youth in general.

Approach

• We will hold space for you and invite you to share your professional and personal experiences about the topic.
• We will use non-formal methods as well as empowering language.
• We will go through a learning journey together, where you will have a main role.
• The seminar will connect to the local realities in Vienna where possible.
• We will invite participants to contribute to the seminar in the run-up to it. The format still has to be decided: it could range from entering information in a Padlet to participating in an online kick-off meeting.

Who is this seminar for?

We’re happy to welcome you if you have experience, expertise or a strong desire to learn more about topics of the seminar: societies shaped by migration and implementing projects in the framework of the EU Youth Programmes Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps.

Ideally, you identify yourself as belonging to one or more of the following groups:

• Youth workers: persons working with youngsters on a regularly basis in an organisation or an informal group (paid or volunteer positions).
• Activists, change makers and multipliers that are connected to youth work and especially those working in the field of migration
• We especially invite youth workers and multipliers to apply that identify themselves as having a migration background. This could mean for example, but is not limited to, that you have a lived experience of not being born in the country you now live in (moving with your family, for work, for studies, for love), experienced forced migration (refugees, asylum seekers,...), or your parents or grandparents left their country of origin. This seminar will not be possible without you in the room.

Application procedure

• You can apply until 15 September 23:59 CET via the SALTO-platform (click on "Apply now!"). The ‘motivation and background’ questions can be answered by completing the form, or by submitting a video or voice recording. All application methods will be processed equally, we invite you to use the one that feels the most comfortable. Please find more information in 'Guidelines application' (see downloads).
• We’re aiming for a group that is diverse in terms of experience and expertise. The selection will be made by SALTO ID, in consultation with the organising team and national agencies involved. We will inform you by 5 October the latest whether you are selected or not.
• If you experience difficulties in accessing the form, we're happy to provide you with a screen reader-friendly version. Just send a mail to pieterjan@salto-youth.net.

We explain the measures we take to make this seminar inclusive in ‘additional information’ (see downloads).