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"Current European refugee crisis is one of the biggest threats to the European Project (Angela Merkel, 2015). Media is full of scenes with thousands of people flocking to Europe from the war zones looking for a better life. However, more often than not they end up in the place that does not want to use their potential nor welcome them. Is Europe going to keep these refugees out of work & societies? It would be a huge burden and a fast track to a clash of cultures. How to avoid that? Refugees must be integrated. Their potential is an opportunity for growth. Therefore, with this idea in mind, “Together: Refugees & Youth” (TRY) project was implemented. In essence, TRY aimed to create a special programme in which youth workers would include refugees in their work with youth. This way, youth could get a chance to develop in a multicultural environment; thus building up their tolerance and increasing multilingualism. Meanwhile, the refugees had a chance to integrate into the society faster, since the youth helped them with the local language, culture and traditions. To achieve this, these objectives were set: 1) integrate refugees into the societies faster by allowing cultural exchange with local youth; 2) raise qualifications and competencies of youth workers, by providing them with tools & standards for multi-cultural element in their work; 3) lower xenophobia, racism and foster multilingualism of the local youth;4) help refugees' integration by promoting more favourable public opinion and employment opportunities for them; 5) improve local youth work by involving refugees with their skills and experience.Naturally, reufgees, youth and youth workers were the main target groups of the project. Thanks to the activities, carried out by TRY project, more than 3000 people were positively influenced and benefited through various ways. Furthermore, this number does not inlcude people what were and will be reached by continuos dissemination acitivies, as well as self-sustainable deliverables long after the project has ended. Core activities of the project were carried out in Latvia, Lithuania and Croatia from 2015 to 2017 (total duration of 2 years), which can be grouped into following:- Research on the best ways to integrate refugees into youth work; - Staff training event;- Creating a methodology of how to include refugees in youth work & setting-up web-platform to help that;- Multiplier events to promote the methodology, match the refugees and youth workers and prepare for the pilot;- A pilot programme that will test the methodology in a variety of events for youth in Latvia and Lithuania;- Social Business Idea Challenge (SBIC) – competition for youth to develop their business ideas aimed at helping refugees;- ""Everyone Welcome"" badge (EWb) creation to award organisations working with refugees;- Further dissemination & continuation activities (e.g. crowdfunding to further support refugee integration to youth work). TRY was managed collectively by all the partners (representing diverse sectors), which had separate tasks & responsibilities and the official language for activities being English. The entire programme was monitored by the project’s quality board. Project has produced a range of tangible results, among which the most important ones are: 1) methodology and standards for youth work to include refugees; 2) SBIC and generated business ideas that could be turned to social enterprises; 3) EWb, which serves as recognition for companies/institutions that help refugees; 4) Web-platform, which stores the main project resources and includes a crowdfunding section.These products have impacted the target audiences in all the partner countries and beyond and still continue to do so. Firstly, local youth work improved by involving refugees with their skills and experience. This has, in turn, added to the better qualifications of youth workers. From a purely refugees’ perspective, they are able to integrate faster. In addition, both participating refugees and youth also improved their skills & competencies, extended their social networks, fostered multilingualism and became less xenophobic. Furthermore, these activities made a positive impact on their future careers/life. TRY’s results also gave more recognition of similar social initiatives aiming to support refugees, which leads to more of them being implemented and, generally, a more favourable public opinion towards refugees. Partner organisations carried out the project with self-sustainability in mind (e.g. through crowdfunding efforts), which allowed the creation of high-quality resources being universally apllicable in European context. This includes deliverables being free and openly accessible on the project's platform. That and the fact that refugee crisis is seemingly without an end and felt across all of the EU, ensures that TRY stays relevant in the long-term.TRY project results are available here: http://www.refugeeseurope.com"
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