One of the important issues of the Subjective Values Foundation is the Erasmus+ programme, in which the foundation regularly participates in many ways. Erasmus+ is the EU’s programme to support education, training, youth and sport in Europe. The philosophy of the programme is very similar to the foundation’s, thanks to which we enjoy dealing actively with the implementation of projects within the framework of the programme. We are currently working on a number of projects within the framework of Erasmus+ and we would like to present them in more detail.
Jobact Europe
The JobAct Europe project running between September 2017 and October 2019 utilized social art, a new form of education and social work. Social art combines the classic methods of social work with creative techniques developed in the dramatic arts. Under the shared goal of strengthening the labor market position of disadvantaged groups – partners from Italy, France, Hungary and Germany worked together this Erasmus+ funded project.
The goal of the project was to support underprivileged people such as refugees, NEETs and unemployed youths on their way to get employed using social arts as a tool to do that.
During the project period the participating organisations exchanged good practices and organised international trainings, furthermore we created a toolkit on using social arts specifically drama methods in order to empower underprivileged youth. During the project period, several pilot projects were launched, Subjective Values Foundation developed this tool for migrants living in Hungary and underprivileged residents of the district of Pesterzsébet, resulting in a measurable increase of the chances of the labour market integration of the target groups.
Furthermore, inspired by this project, SVF has started one of our most successful programmes called Art-ravaló as well. Another special asset of the Jobact project and the connecting pilot projects were the close and successful collaboration with a local artistic organisation called Faktor Terminál Association.
More information about the project can be found here.
Women Creative Power
The project called WomIn Creative Power aims to support the social and economic integration of migrant women in the labour market with a special focus on the creative sector. This Erasmus+ funded project seeks to address gaps in the integration process of migrant and refugee women, contribute to improving their sustainable employability, and strengthening ties with their new communities. The project helps develop creative ideas into work, inclusion and self-fulfilment possibilities within the creative sector by developing mentorship and peer-to-peer tandem programmes as well as promotional videos and a board game.
In recent years, countries across Europe have struggled to integrate the high number of immigrants and refugees that have crossed their borders. In this context, WomInCreativePower (WIPC) targets one group who requires particular attention given their greater tendency to be marginalized within the migrant population: migrant and refugee women. Indeed, this group not only faces the dual barrier of linguistic and cultural integration, but also challenges related to gender discrimination.
Consequently, migrant and refugee women in Europe are often impeded from participating in economic activities, as well as from socially integrating into the communities that they have settled. WICP addresses the specific issue of supporting the full integration of migrant and refugee women into their receiving communities by investing in the development of skills related to entrepreneurship and to the creative sector. This approach emerges from the perception that self-employment and entrepreneurship represent a promising pathway for migrant women to access the labor market.
WICP’s main methodological approach deploys the notions of inclusivity, diversity, and collaboration in Creative and Cultural Industries (CCI) by encouraging migrant and refugee women to develop their creative (artistic and/or cultural) ideas into work, inclusion and self-fulfillment possibilities. The resort to this specific approach is based on the goal of simultaneously promoting inclusiveness and respect for cultural, ethnic, and language richness. Thus, the project seeks to make an important contribution for the full integration of migrant and refugee women in their receiving communities and labor markets, while respecting and highlighting the specific skills they can bring into their new environments.
The project is co-funded by the European Union and is running in four countries (Sweden, Luxembourg, Hungary, and Slovenia) for two years between October 2020 and September 2022.
More information on the project can be found on the Facebook page.
Europe4 Refugees
The project “Europe4 Refugees – follow the routes” was a Strategic Partnership/Key action 2 for networking and exchanging best practices for qualification trainers working with refugees in Europe.
Refugees crossed the southern and eastern European borders, remain in their initial host country, or traveled on towards central or northern Europe. The conditions of admission, legal situation, and efforts towards integration of refugees are, in most cases, different between the European countries. Also differing is the degree of support by state and municipal structures, or structures of civil society staffed by volunteers. Finally, there are different approaches for housing refugees, from transit zones to settling in cooperatively organised housing and learning projects in rural areas, to accommodation in transitional facilities and flats in urban agglomerations.
The project “Europe4 Refugees – follow the routes” gathered co-workers of refugee work from five southern, central, northern and eastern European countries (Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, and Norway) to exchange experiences on these models via training seminars for practicing professionals in their five countries.
The idea was to follow the refugee routes and stopovers of refugees within Europe from the perspective of further examination and analysis. The seven participating partner organisations (two each from Greece, Region Thessaloníki / Island of Lesbos, and from Germany, Dortmund and Hitzacker, one each from Italy, Region Apulia, from Hungary, Budapest, and from Norway, Oslo) are not-for-profit, profit and private institutions of further education, associations of civil society, cooperatives, small enterprises and NGOs, all working immediately or indirectly with refugees or their support structures, usually made up of volunteers. The partners are nearly equally active in urban agglomerations and in rural regions, which offered a further quality for the exchange of best practices. During the project period, participants had the chance to get to know best practices, similar, and new approaches in working with refugees.
Through the adaptation of ideas for working in their own countries, a further advancement towards European standards in educational work and in social work with refugees will be initiated.
GENE aka. Generation Europe
Generation Europe is an international network of youth work institutions for furthering an active European civil society. It motivates participants towards common political action and creates the necessary foundations. This collaboration is made possible, by a funding programme by the International Association for Education and Exchange e.V. of the same name.
30 youth work institutions from 15 European countries are taking part. The concept: In each case, youths from three countries continually collaborate over a duration of three years in order to get politically involved. We identify problems at the locations, meet in international encounters, and support one another in local projects in order to then take on these problems. We network on a digital liquid-democracy platform and discuss which problems appear not just on the national level, but can be considered on the European level as well. For this, we are also seeking dialogue with representatives of political institutions on all levels.
By combining our actions at the location with activities on the European level, we develop and test new approaches of a shared European democracy education. In our network, young people are active together, irrespective of origin, parental income, and previous success in formal educational systems.
The network is a follow up project of a series of trilateral youth exchanges focusing on youth with fewer abilities and it will continue for the upcoming five years with new elements such as education of advocacy for youth policy changes, and mentoring youth to become youth workers themselves called GENE the Academy.
Global Issues for high school teachers
The philosophy of the project is “ Let teachers become experts on current global issues”. The aim of the project is to give high school teachers tools to teach global issues to students. We want to give them a version which is adapted to their needs.
The tool kit is independent and made by academic scholars. Its use is meant to be interactive and responsive with animations and infographics. The list of the topics which is included in the tool kit are the following ones: climate change and its impact, global migration and refugees, poverty, unequality and sustainable development, political systems, supranational institutions and human rights, active war zones and regions in need of humanitarian aid, global north vs global south world connected and disconnected.
During our project we will hold a focus group meeting with the selected 15 teachers who were chosen by us, 5 from each country. They will tell us their experience from the previous tools they used through their career and then they will test our tool kit and give feedback about it.
Detalks
Seven European organizations working in the fields of non-formal education, youth work and art joined together for this two-year-long Erasmus+ funded project (running between September 2018 and December 2020) to support the social inclusion of young newcomers in Europe in innovative ways.
Our aim is to support the linguistic education of newly arrived young immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers by supplementing traditional linguistic education with non verbal communication.
Our project combines the development of non-verbal communication skills with the non-formal learning environments of performing arts and media. We are developing an innovative art-based methodology for linguistic education through non-verbal communication. We will also include the local youth (especially the disadvantaged ones who are more at risk of radicalisation) in the linguistic training in order to help them become more familiar with the various cultures of the newcomers and to minimize xenophobic feelings and attitudes.
The guidebook we developed during the project can be downloaded both in Hungarian and in English.
EURvoice
The EURvoice project aims to increase young people’s coverage of active citizenship and civic responsibility and to encourage young people’s participation in the political and social activities of local communities. The objectives of the project can be summarized as follows:
– Increasing mutual understanding and acceptance between young people from different backgrounds in different communities: through EURvoice educational materials and videos;
– Promoting young people’s responsibility and advocacy: through the EURvoice interactive toolkit;
– Strengthening the participation of young people in their local communities: through the EURvoice online knowledge center.
Strengthening Single Parent Families Training Program Project
The Strengthening Single Parent Families Training Program Project has been created by the Yenimahalle Guidance and Research Center in Ankara. The aim of the project is to develop a common programm with Turkey, Hungary, Austria, Poland and Italy which would help single parents to take better care of themselves and their children.
Taking cultural differences between the countries into account is also a key point of the program. To achieve this goal, 42 single parents were interviewed within the 5 countries to identify their needs and the focus points of the training program. 7 main focus points have been identified to build the programme:
1- The importance of social support
2- Mental health for you and your children
3- Development periods and needs of children
4- Supporting face of indoor activities
5- Economic and legal information
6- Communication and parental skills
7- Participation in school life Core Programing Approach
The current step is to create the program session by session (9 in total). Each representative of the project in a country will send it to the coordinator in Turkey where they will take the best ideas from everyone to develop the final program.
Capoeira Connects Europe
The main aim of “Capoeira Connects Europe” is to encourage people to engage with their own cultural heritage and to discover all forms of it around the world, thus increasing tolerance, empathy, reducing social exclusion of vulnerable and disadvantaged youth and promoting active and healthy lifestyle.
By providing activities which are focused on involving marginalized and underprivileged groups of society (people with racial and ethnic minority background, migrants, people with low income), the project encourages interaction of diverse social groups. Learning and practicing capoeira together creates a collective and team spirit, improves teamwork and communication skills, as well as the approach towards differences.
Furthermore, an online platform and a toolkit will be made to share good practices and experiences of the usage of sport as a tool of social inclusion. The project is funded by the Erasmus+ program of the European Union. It runs for a year between 2021 January and 2021 December in with the partnership of 6 European countries.
