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Who Cares: Advocating social and economic rights of young people facing discrimination
Start date: Dec 1, 2015, End date: Sep 30, 2016 PROJECT  FINISHED 

Young people facing discrimination, especially disadvantaged and vulnerable groups, prefer to withdraw from the situation rather than claiming and advocating their rights. But addressing discrimination is a challenge that many young people should take personally. That is why we, as an experienced partnership, empowered young people facing discrimination with the skills and knowledge required to advocate their social and economic rights. The aim of our partnership over this 3-leg project was to empower young people and youth groups facing discrimination to advocate their social and economic rights, establish the network of trained multipliers on lobbying access to social/economic rights of excluded youth groups and work out a pilot model for advocating social/economic youth rights by other interested institutions and regions of the European partner network. Reaching this aim stimulated access of young people facing discrimination to knowledge and skills required to become more responsible and active citizens. The young participants from the UK, Belarus, Portugal, and Russia were actively involved in the project with Belarus, Portugal, and the Russian partners hosting its different legs: 1. A Contact Making Event in Belarus with 24 representatives of the participating organisations where they shared views on advocating social and economic rights of young people facing discrimination and presented profiles and experience of the participating organisations in this field. The following methodology was used in carrying out the Contact Making Event: presentations of the participants and organisations, Peer Café on visions of youth discrimination and youth rights, mixed nationality workshops and simulation exercises, presentation of the Erasmus+ programme and the EU youth opportunities; Open Space methodology; intercultural energizers and cultural evenings. 2. A Youth Exchange in Portugal with 64 participants (56 young people involved in the work of the represented partner organisations and 8 group leaders) explored different ways of lobbying access to social/economic rights of excluded youth groups. The following working methods were used during the Youth Exchange: thematic workshops, role play (Theatre of the Oppressed) and simulation exercises; Introduction of the Compass human rights manual; workshop on web-resources and opportunities for future projects; introduction and workshop on Youthpass; Project Arrow workshop on project management; projects for the local community. 3. A Training Course held in the Russian Federation for 32 young people motivated to act as multipliers where they concentrated on the development of transferring skills and competences of peer educators, and worked out a pilot model for advocating social/economic youth rights and the ways of disseminating the projects' achievements. The following methodology was used in carrying out the Training Course: sharing of good practice; workshops on transferring knowledge and skills and planning follow-up between the participating partner organisations; “Deep in the Community” field exercise. As a result of the project we have a European pool of young motivated and trained peer leaders that form the basis of youth rights advocacy groups. The groups were established within the structures of our organisations and will continue working after the end of the project. These youth rights advocacy groups will use the obtained skills and competences to access discriminated young people to social/economic youth rights through community projects they generated. We will also spread our findings and knowledge further to other youth organisations active with the issues of lobbying social/economic youth rights as a way to approach youth discrimination.

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