Prev
|
|
Next

From social exclusion to opportunities

Participant: Rifat Demalija

Organisation: 'Youth in Free Initiative', Albania

Project description

talking_for_the_future - rifat

Talking for the future

The project was based in Kukes region, north and north east of Albania and included three districts; Kukes, Has and Tropoja with a population of 116000 inhabitants. Kukes Region is the poorest in Albania and interventions are needed not only to improve the economy of the region but also to educate people and specifically in this case youth on human and social rights. The training course organized within a project addresses social exclusion and cohesion development in the region and targets specifically young people from disadvantaged neighbourhoods, their access to social rights and promotes formal and non formal education.
The main aim of the project was to provide knowledge and skills to address social inclusion of young people from disadvantaged neighborhoods through non-formal education.
Main objectives:
- To increase knowledge of the participants on social rights, prepare and use them as multipliers.
-To educate young people on Social Rights in particular by combating exclusion and by preventing phenomena specifically affecting young people.
-To have access to quantitative and qualitative information about social exclusion through training course.
-To better understand the principles for action against social exclusion and be part of the local government initiatives on social exclusion.
The following methods and project elements were used to achieve the objectives:
-organising a three-day Training Course on social rights for 30 young people living in low-income neighborhoods throughout Kukes Region;
-addressing social exclusion to target the community at large and have a broader impact of the initiative
The methodology was based on:
-YFI management team drafting the plan for the whole duration of the project
-Using the European Social Charter and youth training methods from Compass, T-Kit
-Selection of the participants based on clear criteria set by the leadership team.
- topics to be addressed, analyze youth social situation in the region, provide real life stories from young people living in disadvantaged neighborhoods to better serve the aim of the project.

Target group: some 88 young people from disadvantaged neighbourhoods, teachers, students form the University, journalists, youth employed and social workers from the Municipality

Social rights addressed: Rights to Housing, Education, Employment and Social Protection.

Local authorities involved
Local Government have been partnering before and during the project. During the drafting of the project we organized 2 preliminary meetings with youth, local government representatives and individuals interested on our programs. The partnership with Kruma and B. Curri municipality has been established creating a continuous and successful partnership work we have built with Kukes Municipality. Departments of development and planning were involved directly. Vice Mayor, Miss. Alketa Cenaj was directly involved on coordination of the activities and common meetings. They have supported the project by offering meeting spaces and drafting local youth policies.

Results
There was a great impact towards young people through learning about social rights in local level. Some of them were involved as facilitators, thus we can say that they have also benefited from the experience shared during this project. Another great impact we can mention is the local youth policies recommendations prepared by young people at the end of the project. These recommendations are prepared and presented to Local Authorities with the hope to be part of their work.

Follow-up and sustainability

The project is thought as follow up of previous actions, activities and projects implemented by YFI. The participants in the training course are registered in the Youth Regional e-Network run by YFI and are continuously informed on different topics. YFI produces an e-newsletter which is distributed monthly to the network. The newsletter includes description of activities organized by YFI and other actors working with youth and announcements on possible participation in trainings, seminars, workshops, etc that youth interested could attend. 5 of the participants have been selected to participate in the internship summer program organized by YFI in cooperation with Kukes Municipality. We are adapting our strategic plan towards social inclusion and in these contexts our policies will be developed on social rights and social justice. The experience gained and partnership set up already will serve us to continue working on social issues. Local policies we have recommended to local authorities will be another asset to continue even after LTTC ends.

Current stage of your project: Finalised

Prev
|
|
Next

Turkay GASIMOVA
By participating at this training my expectation is to learn more about the tools of reinforcing youth, European programmes, instruments and policies for facilitating the access of young people to social rights and most importantly the ways of promoting democratic citizenship by cooperation with local communities. (Turkay GASIMOVA, Azerbaijan)
Anna GORSKAYA
This training will help me to bring into my organisation new ideas and practice in working with young people, will help more effectively implement the initiatives that are already started. (Anna GORSKAYA, Belarus)
Jean CASE
I want to find out more about other realities of youth workers and young people. I also wanted to gain a better understanding of social rights and how they can support the vulnerable young people I work with. (Jean CASE, UK)
Elizabeth Smith
The opportunity to participate in “Enter” LTTC would have a powerful effect on my ability to put the young people’s access to social rights firmly at the core of our service, informing our policies and the projects development. (Elizabeth Smith, UK)
Fionn Greig
I wanted to take part in this training as I am passionate about young people's access to their social, human rights. I love working with young people and thought I could broaden my horizons with regards the European perspectives and understandings of youth work and young people's rights. I am also very interested in politics and in increasing equality in society. (Fionn GREIG, UK)
Igor NOSACH
I have the possibility to learn new ways of social integration of care-leavers through social inclusion and raising awareness about human and social rights, enrich my professional experience with approaches used in other countries of Europe. I want my new knowledge and skills be useful in helping vulnerable young people to become successful and active citizens. (Igor NOSACH, Ukraine)
Petra MILOSAVLJEVIC
I want to improve my performance in my organisation as a youth worker. I want to get new knowledge, share experience and meet people from different countries and cultures. And get new friends. (Petra MILOSAVLJEVIC, Serbia)
Aleksandr GRIGOREV
I am confident that the project will help me to learn the best practices of social work across Europe. Eventually my activities as a multiplier of the knowledge, can contribute to a more coherent and comprehensive system of social work in Murmansk. (Aleksandr GRIGOREV, Russia)
Ana Silva
I expect to improve my professional skills in order to do a better and effective work about human and social rights, promoting young people participation and involvement on community issues, becoming more active and developing citizenship skills. (Ana SILVA, Portugal)
Miguel LAMAS
It is a challenge and an opportunity to change different points of approach on how to work with young people about the importance of a stronger awareness of social and human rights with people from different realities, and to be able to develop a project with non-formal approaches in my organisation, which is something that I really believe in. (Miguel LAMAS, Portugal)
Francesco OSIMANTI
I want to enhance to the high level my knowledge of the social policy at European level and, at the same time, to raise my ability in fundraising in order to find the appropriate resources to put in practice the projects spinning in my head. (Francesco OSIMANTI, Italy)
Niina LJUNGKVIST
I wanted to freshen up my professional skills and learn more about social rights and human rights based youth work. This LTTC is giving me much more inspiration than I could have imagined and I will be happy to share it at our organisation. (Niina LJUNGKVIST, Finland)
Mia SCHMIDT JENSEN
I am in this project to learn how to link social rights to concrete street work and other project with youngsters, to inform and educate youngsters in their social rights. (Mia SCHMIDT JENSEN, Denmark)
Anne Mette GLARBO
In the LTTC I found a frame to establish an old idea for creating a participatory youth project. Furthermore it educates and strengthening me in social rights and gives a forum to share experiences with other engaged youth workers. (Anne Mette GLARBO, Denmark)
Karim SAAFI (Belgium)
I expect to improve my core competences and understanding of access to social rights, policy-making, developing partnerships, carrying out activities in that particular framework we are working on. (Karim SAAFI, Belgium)
Eleni Drakou
I believe that my participation in this course will help me enrich not only my knowledge for social rights, but primary my skills and techniques for advocating and promoting social rights for young people. (Eleni Drakou, Cyprus)
Onni SARVELA
I really want to achieve more and deeper knowledge about the topic and the different realities of European countries. I want to offer the possibility to youths to have their voice heard and have impact to society. (Onni SARVELA, Finland)
Estelle GARDETTE
I am expecting that this training will provide me with educational tools in order to develop a project. It will also be an opportunity to develop my competences and do something concrete. (Estelle GARDETTE, France)
Stefanie  PALZ
I am expecting to exchange practices with other youth workers, develop my competences and learn more about good practices from other realities. I also want to learn more about participatory approaches in youth work. (Stefanie PALZ, France)
Lavinia RUSCIGNI
This training will improve my competences in working on access to social rights for young people and will bring an added value to my work, to my organisation and to the activities we will carry out at local level. (Lavinia RUSCIGNI, France)
Achilleas STAVROU
I believe that through this course and the cooperation with the fellow European trainers and youth workers I will be empowered to pursue in a more efficient way my work for the defence of youth rights. (Achilleas STRAVROU, Greece)
Fiona DUNNE
The training curriculum and competences include quite a number of areas in which I have an interest in gaining more knowledge and expertise such as using research for formulating youth work responses, developing democratic and participatory processes with young people, youth-led projects and getting informed about and using European programmes, instruments and policies (Fiona DUNNE, Ireland)
I hope to develop the skills and experience that would augment our current work. Additionally, through networking with other international projects I would hope to learn of other issues being faced by communities and increase my knowledge of models of best practice from a European perspective. (Claire O’NEILL, Ireland)
Monia DE PAOLI
I expect to know how the Council of Europe could help me and my organisation in working better, I hope to learn new ways to approach young adults and the complexity of working with other institutions and organisations. (Monia DE PAOLI, Italy)
Ljuba TIHOMIROVA
My very first motivation is that I was always interested in social sciences and such an uprising problem as discrimination, violence and bullying. I expect to learn statistics, methods of how to deal with the cases of violence and discrimination, case studies and build collaboration options, as well. (Ljuba TIHOMIROVA, Latvia)
My motivation for taking part in this course is animated by a sincere interest in helping the people in need to solve the problems dealt with and the desire to improve the experience I already have in managing such difficulties. (Djengis Huseini, Macedonia)
Milos RISTOVSKI
I am very much interested to understand better the approaches for social inclusion and fighting against discrimination of youth as this is key competence to have when working with youth in the local context where I am from. (Milos Ristovki, Macedonia)
Ana Sofia MARTINS
I need to further develop my competences so I can better contribute in future projects in the youth field and to be able to elaborate and implement realistic and relevant projects by myself. Also, to better understand the strategies to engage with local authorities and the opportunity to have an intercultural experience. (Ana Sofia Martins, Portugal)
Olga INZHUVATKINA
Participation in this programme will help me to attract the various European organisations to problems of these children in Russia, besides I will be able to become stronger in my everyday work on child protection. (Olga INZHUVATKINA, Russia)
Roman BARTOS
My motivation lies in the interest in a social status of young disadvantaged people in today´s society, social-cultural environment of young people in today´s Europe or an opportunity to create responsible and competent citizens in a multicultural environment with a possibility to participate in a public life. (Roman Bartos, Slovakia)
Merve Seda CEVIK
I want to learn about youth and social rights and developing current training programmes' contents and improve young trainers of the human rights and social rights training programmes. I want to create a new youth project about social rights. I want to improve myself on social rights as an active citizen. (Merve Seda Cevik, Turkey)
Aleksey  Murashkevych
I want to improve my knowledge on project management and implementation. I want to know more about techniques and measures for fighting discrimination, violence and exclusion affecting young people. (Aleksey Murashkevych, Ukraine)