Youth Sharing Experiences on Migration and Developing Tools for Building Active European Citizenship -

4-19th August 2007, Aljezur/ Portugal

In August 2007, EYFA had a 14 days of Youth Exchange in Aljezur in Portugal with the participants from different active groups from different countries in Europe, namely, Albania(Mjaft), Romania(Komunitas), Serbia(StaniPani), Montenegro(PlagusM), Croatia(Youth Peace Group Danube), Italy(La Libellula), Portugal(Esdime) and The Netherlands(EYFA).

The theme of the youth exchange was Migration(see the pictures.). The youth exchange brought together youth from 'old' and 'new' EU member states as well as the Balkans, to disscuss, compare and enrich their different perspectives on migration issues. We aimed to stimulate awareness on the many different ways in which migration concretely effects daily life of youth around Europe. The youth exchange was a successful youth network meeting which will follow up with several meetings and future projects of the groups that participated.

Youth in Action Program

There were 8 Partners Organizations in this Youth Exchange;

ESDIME – Portugal - http://www.esdime.pt/

Created in 1989, Esdime is one of the first organizations that started working in the field of Local Development in rural context, in Portugal. At the moment, Esdime develops projects of intervention in the following sectors: territorial dynamics, training actions, technical support to local organizations and associations, promotion and support of local partnerships dynamics, psychosocial integration of women with less opportunities, projects management support, adult education learning. Concerning Youth: promotion of youth initiatives, promotion of EVS project (sending and hosting projects), national and international youth exchanges. Esdime is also manager of LEADER program in our intervention zone.

KOMUNITAS – Romania - http://www.komunitas.ro/

The NGO has four Romanian members from Bucharest and one member from Berlin, which is currently living in Bucharest. Our organisation is very much interested in the topic of mobility/migration in general, and of labour migration in particular. Some of us have been individually involved in projects on this topic having participated in projects like:

• Temporary living abroad (Open Society Foundation, Romania www.osf.ro, Guga Simina) February-December 2005
• Work is elsewhere (Multicultural Center of Prague, research in Romania, The Czech Republic and Spain, Guga Simina) May-September 2006
• Migration and Film (Viadrina University, Frankfurt Oder, Florea Ioana) June-September 2005
• Migration and Virtual Identity (Viadrina University, Frankfurt Oder, Florea Ioana) October 2005-January 2006
• The impact of migration on local communities (SNSPA, Bucharest, Simina Guga and Tarca Miruna ) May- July 2005
• The impact of tourism in the redefinition of two villages: 2 Mai (Tarca Miruna, October-June 2004) and Vama Veche (Simina Guga October 2004- December 2005)

We are currently working on a project called “Projectortank” (Mobile Cinema) together with another organisation from Britain, consisting in organising visual projections of social activist and documentary films in poor neighbourhoods around the country.

Issues that correspond to our Komunitas’s interest:

• migration of the Roma population (internal)
• labour migration and it’s implications (external)
• impact on the place of origin and destination
• transnationalism
• social, cultural, political and economic impact of migration at the micro and macro level of research)
• flows of migration determined by industrialisation and de-industrialisation (internal)
• tourism and the redefinition of newly popular spaces

These are just some aspects that we are mainly interested in and that we are quite well informed about from our previous studies and work. But we are open to new suggestions and new challenges.

LA LIBELLULA – Italy - http://www.lalibellula.org/

La Libellula is an association of social promotion that works especially with immigrants, both children and adult, to teach them the italian language as the second language. We work with education programs on the topics of immigration for teachers of the public schools and we organize cultural events to encourage the intercultural exchange. Our group is constituted by anthropologists with this specializations:

- teaching of italian language as second language;

- cultural mediation,

- education for immigrant children.

We believe in a multicultural Europe which is in peaceful relatins with its immigrants. We want to increase our local and international contacts and gain tools to continue and network on migration and be part of the process of creating tools to achieve concrete results and projects.

MJAFT – Albania - http://www.mjaft.org/

Albania is a country with a very high number of immigrants all around the world. It is part of the culture and history of our country since two centuries ago. For these reasons, migration is quite a sensitive issue to the Albanian population. In the past 15 years alone, more than one million people have left Albania in search for a better life in Western Europe, USA or elsewhere.

The MJAFT Movement has organized two protests in relation to migration problems for Albanian citizens. The violence and discrimination towards Albanian immigrants has led to not few instances of unlawful imprisonments, and worse, killing of innocent people at the borders of the European Union. It goes without saying that we are very interested in learning more about migration and helping in raising awareness about freedom of movement and human rights.

Currently MJAFT is Albania’s largest Movement, with over 7 000 members, more than 1000 volunteers, Civic Clubs in the cities of Berat, Durres, Kukes, Fier, Lezha, Lushnje, Permet, Peshkopia, Pogradec, Puka, Rreshen, and Sarande, as well as Student Clubs in the six university towns of Elbasan, Gjirokaster, Korce, Shkoder, Tirana, and Vlore. MJAFT Clubs are an initiative that successfully expanded the MJAFT Movement experience to the local level by creating citizen groups in respective towns to advocate and lobby for issues relevant to the community. Mjaft!, is now a comprehensive movement encompassing a diversified program that places civil society and all is components at the epicenter of its work. The vision of the MJAFT Movement is to achieve a well-governed Albania with active citizens, strong communities and a positive image in the world through encouraging participation of citizens in decision-making by influencing and monitoring policies at both local and national level; promoting volunteerism, and improve cooperation within communities; rehabilitating the sense of protest.

Mjaft operates as a reactive and proactive movement about the most important issues and problems of the Albanian society, by voicing the concerns of citizens through protests and at the same time lobbying for the same issues in decision-making levels. Our main activities include nation-wide campaings that tackle the basic problems of our citizens, like lack of water and electricity, lack of a progressive and qualitative education, blood-feuds etc.

Mjaft also works for the monitoring of government activities in order to be updated and informed about any legal initiatives and changes in government that allows us to readily respond to those which do not represent the best interest of all or a part of the citizens.

In addition, we have our educational program, the Debate Program, which focuses on civic education and debate on national and international issues.

PLAGUS M - Montenegro

We organize Meetings, workshops, educational lectures

-trainings and practical work with youth

-work in network on local and regional level

-amateur theatre, dancing group, local concerts, exhibitions on local level,

-recreation tours ( mountaineering, hunting, fishing, etc. )-sport

To activate young people who have ideas and talents with support of ART, we thought that this can be a great challenge both for us as a very young NGO and for the young people of this region. Plav is a small city on the Northern part of Montenegro.Whole north of Montenegro is forgotten from the Government and almost nothing is done for young people in this area, so we wanted to do SOMETHING about it.

STANIPANI KOLEKTIV – Serbia - http://www.stanipanikolektiv.com/

StaniPaniKolektiv was founded in May 2002 as an informal group of young people who wanted to provide space and tools for making changes and alternatives in their environment and lives of youth in post-war society with nationalist tendencies.

These were pointed out as important principles: autonomy, solidarity, non-hierarchical organizing and non-profitability.

Our mission is to give contribution to creating alternatives to global capitalism and all forms and systems of domination and discrimination including, but not limited to, patriarchy, homophobia, sexism, racism and religious fundamentalism. In doing so, we combine culture and political activism

Also, our aim is to expand the network of similar activist and artist groups both in the region and wider Europe. To build possibilities for ongoing exchange and support within this network with a view to creating positive social change and increased human rights.

Since 2002 the collective engaged in organizing anti-war, political activities, cultural events, free and benefit parties for social structures. We participated in "Road to Peace I" – Priština/Kosov@ and organized "Road to Peace II" - Belgrade, participated in "Crossing bridges" part of the "Expo" festival in Bulgaria, No Border peace actions, organized "The first festival of alter-globalist film" in Serbia…The collective is a supporter of No one is illegal network.

• Some of initiatives and regular activities include: Stani Pani circus, initiative for meeting groups and people who are active on similar issues, in Serbia and beyond, to exchange knowledge, and experiences. Our program include workshops, films, discussions and presentations, so far we were touring in several towns in Serbia presenting it.

• SPK chai-shop, initiative for creating drug-free spaces at various parties and cultural/political festivals.

• Buy nothing day/Free shop, every November 28th on the streets of Belgrade we organize Free shop. It functions in a way opposed to money-based economy. Everything in the shop is for free, one can take any item from it without having to give anything in return, and also, bring and leave usable cloths and devices. SPK is still seeking adequate space for realizing permanent Free shop.

• Food not bombs actions, by giving free food to the poor people on public places, we directly point out to the amount of famine and the surpluses of food that is not used and is going to waste. We are indicating the omission of society that supports this, while at the same time stocking huge amounts of money for making wars.

• We Are Everywhere book (www.weareeverywhere.org ), translation and publishing this book about ten years of global movement of the movements against capitalism around the world. Funds for publishing was raised on benefit parties, and the book will be not be sold but given away for free.

YOUTH PEACE GROUP DANUBE – Croatia - http://www.ypgd.org/

Youth Peace Group Danube is a non-profit, non-governmental youth organisation, operating in the area of the city of Vukovar and its surroundings. Our goal is to, through self-development, character building and networking, promote the work of young people, as well as emancipation of individualism and personal freedoms.
The organisation was registered in 1998 and has been active since. It is mainly focused on youth projects and creating of space for young people to meet and gain different kinds of experiences, from practical skills to cross-cultural exchnage. Main goals are to provide qualitative accommodation and proper educational program for approximately 300 visitors a year, and to created place in Vukovar where students will be able to spend time and learn through theoretical and practical workshops.