The Megaphone
Participant: Rami Al-khamisi
Organisation: Megafonen, Sweden
Rami's neighbourhood
Name of the project: Nuförtiden (These days)
Project description: The aim of the project was to create a platform, a newsmagazine were young people from the age 16 to 25 in the suburbs of Stockholm can become aware of and discuss issues such as racism, violence and discrimination. Young people involved in the project were able to create their own agenda and tackle the issues that concern them. The overall purpose of this project was to raise awareness among young people of their social rights, so that they are more able to access them. Rinkeby- Kista, the district of Stockholm, where the project was implemented has the population of 60 000. The project was mainly addressing the young people in the Kista community where around 25 000 people live. Rinkeby – Kista has highest unemployment rate among young people in Sweden and many young people living there do not do well at school. There is a high number of criminality. Young people lack a social network and motivation which you need to take you somewhere in the society and be able to access social rights to overcome discrimination and exclusion.
Target group: 19 young people of migrant origin and/or minority background from the city district of Rinkeby- Kista; some 3000 young people aged 15-25 in the suburbs of Akalla, Husby and Kista.
Social rights addressed: Non- discrimination, non violence, employment, education, participation and housing
Local authorities involved: The local council Rinkeby- Kista
Results: During the project 6 young people were hired and paid for their work by the local council. Some 12 young developed their competences in journalism through the training course they participated in. After the project we had more motivated young people who wanted to continue volunteering and being engaged in the neighbourhood. By having the magazine distributed to more then 3000 young people in the area, and to show them that young people produced it, made more young people interested in the project and the organisation.
Follow-up and sustainability: The project with the magazine will still continue. We are planning to start the work with the project again at the beginning of June 2011. This time we want to improve the skills of young people when its comes to writing and interviewing. This year we have applied to the local council to have 10 young people working on developing the magazine. The funding will be applied from the cultural department in the city of Stockholm. We are also planning to reach out to more young people. We must work closer with the local municipality in order to lobby for some of the social rights that we are targeting with our project with our young people. I will also take contact with the different funders who can provide us with recourses to involve more young people. The visibility of the project is something which we have to improve in order to inform more young people in the neighbourhood that they can get engaged in the project but also because we want to reach out to policy makers and politicians.
We have also discussed to have partnership with other organization in other neighbourhoods to reach out to their young people and make them more active.
Status of the project: Implemented
