The current project aims to the active participation of 6 young volunteers coming from disadvantaged backgrounds in the activities of two prominent hosting organization in Thessaloniki. The program is consisted of two actions. The first action involves 3 volunteers from Hungary, Romania, FYROM, aged 17- 30 years who will stay in Thessaloniki for the period of 10 months in order to be involved in the activities of the organization related with the educational robotics as an innovative educational process. Tyhe second action involves another 3 volunteers from the same countries, in creative and supportive activities in Roma community based on the relative needs in Dendropotamos suburb, in Thessaloniki. The current Programme aims to involve young people with fewer opportunities due to geographical, economical and educational obstacles which they didnt have the opportunity to participate in any mobility program in the past and give them the chance to work on the educational process and achieve the aforementioned goals of the project. For the implementation of the above project 3 organizations are in cooperation, the united Societies of Balkans, acting as coordinating organization, as well as Eduact and Lighthouse of the World acting as hosting organizations. The coordinating organization has the strategic plan to find hosting organizations and involve them to the volunteering activities of the Erasmus+ program. Currently we are cooperating with the aforementioned organizations who have showed great work in the past years in the cit of Thessaloniki.

<< Objectives >>This international meeting of the members and partners of the Phiren Amenca Network aims at sharing and adapting different tools and methods used in youth work with young people with fewer opportunities, and especially Roma, in order to enhance their participation in international mobility programs, and volunteering activities. Therefore the main objectives are the following:- to improve the practices of the involved organisations regarding the recruitment, the preparation, the support and the continued involvement of their Roma and non-Roma volunteers in order to develop their long-term involvement in civil society activism to combat stereotypes, racism and antigypsyism. - to share knowledge and develop the attitudes of coordinators, tutors, mentors, youth workers, at voluntary service organisations related to young people with disadvantaged backgrounds, especially Roma youth- Exchange tools to involve/recruit more young Roma in local activities and international volunteering-Exchange tools for increasing the quality of voluntary service programs especially for young Roma - through mentoring and inter-cultural support-Discuss and develop ways for keeping former volunteers involved in the work of organisations and in the fight against antigypsysim after their service<< Activities >>The proposed project consists of one international meeting, its preparation and the dissemination of its results within an outside of our network.The meeting will be held in Florence, Italy, between the 21st and 23rd of November, 2019.Participants will be youth workers and mentors from six member and partner organisations of the Network, who are in daily contact with the volunteers, and are involved in the recruitment, support of volunteers with fewer opportunities, and who seek ways for keeping them actively in the organisations after their return.The meeting will be realized with the participation of 17 youth workers.<< Impact >>We expect the quality of voluntary service form the proposed project to improve within our Network.Cooperation: Due to the personal meeting and time dedicated to discussions and planning together, participants will have a better understanding of the contexts of other organisations and the realities of (Roma) young people in other countries. We also expect that by meeting personally, the level and quality of communication will also become better and more flawless in the future.Intercultural level:Our expectation is through listening to the experiences of other organisational representatives, the intercultural skills and competences of participating youth workers will develop.Recruitment: Familiarizing with different methods, and taking them back home to the organisations, the participants' organisations will be able to better reach out to young people with fewer opportunities. They will gain practice in adapting successful methods to different realities as well. Knowing more about the different contexts, they will be able to better prepare the volunteers for their service in the future.Support of volunteers with fewer opportunities: participants, who are in daily contact with the volunteers, will gain new ideas and tool for supporting the learning and the adaptation of the volunteers when hosting them. Engagement with former volunteers: youth workers of member and partner organisations will be able to plan the involvement of the volunteers in their organisational work after their return.These will have a valuable impact on the Network itself as we are planning to continue and upgrade our volunteering (ESC) projects in the coming years.By the end of the meeting, participants will- Have knowledge about the different tools and methods each partner uses in terms of recruiting, supporting the volunteers- Have gained intercultural competences through interacting with each other and by learning about the different realities (especially of Roma youth) in the different countries and localities- Have a general understanding of the recruitment and preparation of volunteers within the network- Have learnt new ways, methods of reaching out to young people with fewer opportunities (and Roma in particular)- Have gained knowledge and practice on supporting volunteers form disadvantages backgrounds during their service- Have developed new ways of keeping the volunteer active in their organisations after their return form voluntary service- Be able to adapt different working methods to their own organisational and national context- Have got to know each other, which will make their future planning and implementation of international projects together.

In 2015 the European Parliament officially recognized the Roma Holocaust and specifically addressed antigypsyism as a problem to be solved by all European governments. The European Commission supported the resolution and focused on antigypsyism as one of the root causes of exclusion. The European Council especially emphasized to focus on youth empowerment to target these issues. However, there is still a lack of progress in Roma inclusion within the EU countries. Policies and programs fail to address Roma inclusion as affecting the whole society rather than being a topic of the minority. Especially problematic is that the root causes of exclusion are not thoroughly targeted: stereotypes and antigypsyism. The project “Dikh He Na Bister Thaj Ker! – Look and Don’t Forget and Act!” drew on methods of Human Rights Education and informal learning in order to raise awareness of young people about the Roma genocide, about human rights and the mechanisms of racism and antigypsyism, to build capacity and motivate youth leaders and organizations to take an active role in promoting remembrance and human rights education on local, national and international levels. With this project we achieved overall three main goals: (1) we strengthened the transnational long-term partnership of Roma and non-Roma youth organizations through sharing and disseminating successful practices in order to enhance their engagement and joint strategies on the Roma genocide, Hate Speech, antigypsyism and human rights education in youth work; (2) we developed Roma youth capacity and stimulated their active citizenship, enhancing motivation for action, enabling critical thinking, self-organization and leadership to address those issues and be the actors of change in their communities; (3) we raised awareness and created visibility on the topics of Roma Genocide, antigypsyism, Roma exclusion and hate speech by bringing together a diverse network of Roma and non-Roma organizations and fostering dialogue between organizations and political stakeholders.In overall 3 activities with 141 participants in total the project trained 70 already experienced youth workers, trainers and multipliers aged 20-35 in order to become active leaders in the fight against antigypsyism and educated 71 young Roma and non-Roma in the age between 15 and 30 about the Roma Genocide and motivated them to become active, self-reflective and critical European citizens raising their voice. In a training-course in Dachau, Germany we built the capacity of Roma and non-Roma educators, trainers and youth leaders, as well as their youth organizations in their work on remembrance, Holocaust and Human Rights Education. A seminar in Brussels, Belgium brought together young Roma and non-Roma activists, youth workers, and educational multipliers and their youth organizations reflecting on approaches of campaigning and advocacy for non-discrimination and combatting antigypsyism and strengthening the participation of young Roma and non-Roma in the European policy making processes. Finally, a youth exchange in Krakow, Poland provided learning opportunities about the Roma Genocide and its continuing effects until today for young Roma and non-Roma by focusing on oral history approaches, the remembrance in Roma communities and especially intergenerational dialogue with Holocaust survivors and 2nd generation survivors.Our participants were highly motivated to fight social injustices and any kind of discrimination and showed high interest in learning and reflecting. The group was balanced in the participation of young Roma and non-Roma. We fostered a mutual dialogue between Roma and non-Roma and achieved to include encouraged Roma participants with fewer opportunities – especially Roma women as they are facing multiple forms of discrimination. By ensuring gender balance we minimised forms of discrimination that women as well as people identifying as LGBTIQA* face. Mutual respect and complete tolerance towards each other is a self-evident common basis of our work.The project empowered youth activism at local, national and international level as young Roma and non-Roma acquired knowledge and tools to develop new activities and actions and increased their self-esteem and pride to be part of an international civic movement of Roma and non-Roma. Already established youth workers, leaders and multipliers strengthened their self-confidence by improving their advocacy skills and being empowered to present their causes to political stakeholders. Thereby the recognition of non-formal education and Human Rights Education on international level was increased by creating visibility for our participants and their best. The project especially promoted the recognition of civic educational approaches to challenge stereotypes and racism, stressed antigypsyism as the root cause for Roma exclusion in Europe today and highlighted the importance of fostering the dialogue between Roma and non-Roma communities.

"The project ""Connection: Tools and competences for international and local networking and cooperation - ConNet"" proposes a learning path to achieve networking and cooperative skills and to develop new networking proposals. The project offers the volunteers, youth workers and partner organisations a learning, professionalizing experience in the work with youngsters with fewer opportunities and in the field of local and internatinal networking. During the project activities all involved participants will experiment, learn or improve their knowledges about the nature and the functioning of a Network. Furthermore they will gain key transversal competences: intercultural communication, team work, decision making, conflict and crisis management, peace building and democratic participation, leadership and followership. The project involves 9 partner organisations and wants to address the topic on an international level, involving 4 European organisations, from Italy, Hungary, Spain and Germany and 5 non-European organisations, from Nicaragua, Uruguay, Argentina and India. The project will directly involve 16 volunteers in 10 hosting placements with several activities with young people coming from difficult background. The volunteers will also support the partner organisations in their networking work, implementing the already existing activities or helping create new possible cooperations at a local and international leve. Volunteers will gather the best practices active in their placement in the on-line project platform. They will be supported by Youth Workers who will follow the whole implementation of the project. The project foresees a Training for Youth Workers, where participants will learn in details what a Network is and which are its tasks and working activities. They will also study and analyze the main networking and cooperative skills and develop some training tools for Youth Workers. With the Training results the partnership will develop 3 info-graphics, and the tools will be collected in the web platform. The partners will organize and implement local networking events also with the help of volunteers in order to create new cooperation possibilities and proposals, by using project results and tools. A final transnational event in Italy will offer the partners the possibility to directly experiment the networking event of Phiren Amenca Network, where they will also meet a representative of the CCIVS network of international volunteering.All the project results will be disseminated between partner organisations, other interested organisations, networks, national agencies, stakeholders, institutions. All the participants will achieve important competences to be used in their future programmes and carrier. The project will spread European values and opportunities at an international level and will foster the international cooperation."

"“Raising voices of Roma youth in European debates” was a project that aimed to promote in a creative and positive way the self-organization, empowerment, citizen awareness, the values of youth work and the need for recognition of Romani history among young Roma and non-Roma participants.The year 2019 offered two important but also challenging dates for our youth work: the European Parliament elections at the end of May 2019, and the 75th anniversary of the European Roma Holocaust Memorial Day on 2 August, as dedicated by the European Parliament and Commission. Our international partnership was built with the commitment to strengthen the political participation of young adults, and in particular to raise voices of young Roma and minorities in the public sphere. Witnessing a dramatic increase of hate speech, and in particular of antigypsyism and antisemitism in public discourses and election campaigns, we aimed to build the capacity of youth workers and activists to respond with their youth organizations to hate speech. The project consisted of one training-course/seminar, and one international youth exchange which both involved partner organizations and participants from 10 countries all active in the field of remembrance and human rights education with young people. The project contributed to train 35 youth leaders and workers (Roma and non-Roma, as well as gender balance) in remembrance and human rights education, and to involve the multipliers in running a youth exchange for 60 young people and in various local follow-up activities contributing to develop in particular social competences to challenge stereotypes and racism.This project aimed to raise awareness of young people about the Roma genocide, about human rights and the mechanisms of racism and antigypsyism, to build capacity and motivate youth leaders and organizations to take an active role in promoting remembrance and human rights education on local, national and international levels. The project created a long-term partnership between Roma and non-Roma youth organizations to share practices and experiences and to strengthen their cooperation for mutual respect and dialogue. Activity 1: The “Training for multipliers: Raising participation of Roma and minority youth in European Parliament elections” in March 2019 in Brussels (BE) aimed to develop the approaches towards youth participation and mobilization, as well as approaches of campaigning and advocacy for non-discrimination and combatting racism, as well as to engage young people in a dialogue with politicians and policy-makers about the issues that concern them, in particular the current realities of antigypsyism in the wake of the 2019 European elections. The project did not only involve 35 young leaders and youth workers from 10 countries, but brought together a highly diverse group of participants coming from Roma, Jewish, Armenian diaspora and minority background. The project created a unique space of learning and exchange between different communities, and developed creative approaches of minority youth mobilization for the European Parliament elections. The project strengthened the long-term cooperation and coalition between different (minority) youth organizations. Activity 2: The Youth Exchange “Dikh he na Bister - Youth Exchange on Roma History and Remembrance"" in July/August 2019 in Krakow aimed to create possibilities for 60 young people to learn about the Roma Genocide, as well as the consequences for today, to develop critical thinking and reflection in understanding and analyzing the past and the present struggle of Roma in the world; to familiarize the participants with the concept of remembrance and its relevance and role in addressing contemporary antigypsyism, and to strengthen dignity, solidarity and empathy of and with people who suffer racism, discrimination and any form of injustice. In particular, this year the youth exchange focused on Romani resistance and reconciliation in the past and present. The exchange created an intergenerational dialogue with the last Holocaust survivors and the 2nd generation, but also with institutional representatives (EU Commissioner Vera Jourova, German Minister Michael Roth, civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson). The youth exchange created for the first time a highly visible role and contribution of young people to the official institutional commemoration of the “European Roma Holocaust Memorial Day” – on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of 2 August. The exchange encouraged young people and youth organizations to become active locally for remembrance and for the struggle against racism."