<< Objectives >>Dynamo International is an NGO that fights at the international level for the defense of human rights with populations in a situation of social exclusion, and in particular, children working and/or living on the street. Its strategy of actions is developed through 3 poles: socio-educational work for young people in difficulty, international cooperation and solidarity, and the Street Workers Network.Dynamo International Street Workers Network - DISWN is an International Network of Social Street Workers (SSW) members of national platforms, distributed in 4 Regions, Africa, Asia, Europe, and Americas, that coordinate and mobilize the SSW in order to reinforce at the local level the quality of their practices and their advocacy actions for the benefit of the target populations. DISWN faced with the Covid-19 health crisis and its global consequences, had to postpone the International Forum Words from the Street which was to be held in October 2020 and schedule a new edition which took place from 18 to 22 October 2021 in Brussels. However, to better understand the impact that the pandemic has had on precarious populations and on the practices and actions of street social workers, DISWN proposed a week of exchanges, testimonies and reflections, called nternational digital Street Web Forum, which took place from October 26 to 30, 2020.Three key moments: oInternational Pilot Group (decision-making body of DISWN) allowed to collect the findings and recommendations of the members oFour international webinars on the impact of the crisis on precarious populations, findings, and recommendations at the international level, inviting actors from civil society and public institutions to participate,oPress Conference to present a summary of the week’s work and recommendations.The reality: we are not all equal when it comes to dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has highlighted issues related to poverty, exclusion, and discrimination. Everywhere the repression and especially the stigmatization of the populations in street situation have increased. In this crisis, young people aged 18 to 25 are particularly vulnerable. Mental health, a topic that is so pervasive at the international forum, is of great concern and alarm to the community of street social workers.https://dynamointernational.org/en/street-workers-network-en/web-of-the-street/ These observations and recommendations were a good springboard to continue the exchanges and reflections during the Forum Words from the Street in 2021.Nearly 800 street social workers from 53 countries took part in the International Digital Web Street Forum.Dynamo International – Street Workers Network mobilized in Brussels from 18 to 22 October 2021 within the framework of the Forum Words from the Street which aimed to generate an international mobilization of social actors from various sectors and promote the speech of young people and street social workers, as privileged witness to the social realities of the street. The choice to organize an Open Forum, a tool of collective intelligence, enabled the participants to be the main actors by giving them the opportunity to propose workshops and facilitate them. For five days, based on the reality of their fields, the participants exchanged and enriched their practices through the fifty workshops offered, created, energized,and produced recommendations presented to the European Commission on the closing day of the forum. Other activities were set up during the Forum, such as field visits to Brussels associations doing street social work, evenings organized to share informal moments of cohesion, workshops centered around regional reflections on the progress and observations about the state of street social work in the world. One afternoon was devoted to the exchange between young people and social workers. Finally, all these activities have prepared an intervention organized with the European Commission. Street social workers and young people were able to share and present to political stakeholders the recommendations made during the forum.The Forum Words from the Street brought together 300 participants from various sectors (32 of whom via the Erasmus+ KA1 project), including young beneficiaries of associations present, street social workers, and other actors of youth services. The participants were nationals from 25 different European countries and elsewhere (13 of them via the Erasmus+ KA1 project), representing 80 organizations from around the world.Further to the Forum, advocacy activities will be implemented at the European and international level by the members of DISWN among others through interpellations on youth policies.https://dynamointernational.org/en/words-from-the-street-2021-international-forum-of-social-street-workers/<< Implementation >>Web from the Street International Digital Forum (october 26-30 2020) :The Web from the Street Week programming was organized as follows:- Two days of information exchange and development of concrete proposals following the COVID-19 pandemic by webinar between representatives of the international network of street social workers. 2020 Pilot Group (DISWN decision-making body) - Four international webinars in English, French and Spanish on the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on street populations: findings and recommendations from DISWN member countries and partners. - 5 local forums organized on the theme of Children’s Rights in the Covid-19 period, in 5 countries, namely; the DRC, Tunisia, Switzerland, Vietnam and Senegal.- A video conference in French on the issues of precariousness and poverty in the context of Covid-19 in partnership with the Festival des Libertés.- A press conference to address to national and international bodies the findings and recommendations from the week of «Web from the Street» exchanges. Finally, nearly 800 street social workers from 53 countries took part in the Web from the Street International Digital Forum.Words from the Street (october 18-22 2021) :Words from the Street followed the methodology of the Open Forum: this concept was born from the observation that during a meeting, the most interesting exchanges between the participants took place during the coffee break. Thus, this methodology aims to reproduce the conditions of these informal exchanges. The open forum is a method of participatory animation that promotes the emergence of collective intelligence within a group.The participatory methodology and tools of collective intelligence enabled the participants to be the main actors of the Forum by giving them the opportunity to propose workshops and facilitate them. Around 50 workshops were offered, 48 to be precise.Some instructions were given for organizational and qualitative purposes:• The workshops will last one and a half hours.• Workshops will be open to a maximum of 25 participants including facilitators.• Each person offering a workshop is committed to facilitating it and ensuring a written record of it, he or she may designate a note taker from among the participants in the workshop.• It is requested that, as far as possible, a synthesis of the workshops be carried out during the last 15 minutes of the workshops. This short synthesis will serve to bring out the main ideas of the workshop and can be used to produce the recommendations of the Forum. A very simple document to complete will be provided to each facilitator.The forum allowed each and everyone to propose a workshop and to make full of ideas in a superb organized chaos. For five days, based on the reality of the field, participants exchanged, enriched their practices, created together, energized and produced recommendations that were presented to the European Commission during the closing day of the forum.In addition, other activities were set up during the Forum, such as field visits to Brussels street social work associations, in order to introduce participants to the local community fabric and to inspire or feed their topics of discussion. There were also evenings organized to share informal moments of cohesion, workshops centered around regional reflections on the progress and observations about the state of street social work in the world. An afternoon was devoted to the exchange between young people and social workers. Finally, all these activities have prepared an organized intervention with the European Commission, during which morning street social workers and young people were able to share and expose to political stakeholders the recommendations made during the forum.In figures, Words from the Street brought together 300 participants from various sectors (32 of whom via the Erasmus+ KA1 project), including young beneficiaries of associations present, street social workers, and other actors of youth services. The participants were from 25 different European and international countries (13 of them via the Erasmus+ KA1 project), representing 80 organisations from around the world.<< Results >>In 2020, the Webinars developed during the Digital Forum Web from the Street helped to highlight the findings of the impact of the COVID-19 crisis and its consequences on vulnerable populations, and in particular on street children, as well as stakeholder recommendations. Thanks to this, we were able to present the recommendations at a press conference, and support the mobilization of workers and members of the network to prepare the activity Words from the Street 2021.Our objectives being to promote the empowerment and protection of the rights of people in street situations through the capacity building of street social workers, we have chosen the method of the Open Forum for Words from the Street 2021. Thanks to this collective intelligence tool, the first success concerns the way in which we initiated the results and impacts of Words from the Street: in a participatory way, where all participants were included and involved in fact by proposing different themes and workshops. This made it possible to avoid suffering and even to take advantage of the cultural, linguistic and professional diversity of the participants, which could appear in the first place as a problem to be tackled. It has in fact proved to be an indisputable force.The participatory workshops allowed participants on the one hand to share their experience with other social workers, and also to learn from others. There were methodological exchanges in street work, workshops around the transmission of good practices, but also more in-depth reflections on key themes in certain sectors. The following is a non-exhaustive list of workshops proposed and facilitated by participants:• Chess as a Street Social Work Approach Technique• The meeting: spontaneity vs technicality• Precariousness of the social worker• Minority-majority transition and access to housing• Between the street and school• Relationship: a craft that envisions• Living on the street in a feminine way: representations, deconstructions, coping logic• Street work and gender perspectiveOn the other hand, the field visits made it possible to present a set of Brussels organisations working on the street or with people in street situations, giving moments of professional exchanges with the participants, while presenting them with a concrete field framework to inspire their reflections and enrich their panel of skills.One of the activities of the Forum has left the place, the word and the action to young people, accompanied by outreaches and Brussels associations, directly concerned by street social work or not, in interaction with the participants, for most of them youth workers. In a playful way, the young people were able to exchange with the workers and learn from each other, mixing different points of view and thinking about what the social work methods of tomorrow might be, based on desires, the needs and dreams of young people today. This workshop was the result of the policy recommendations that young people were able to bring to the European Commission on Friday, at a time when their words were highlighted and listened to.This day at the European Commission was particularly the moment when the fruit of the reflections carried out during the Forum, political recommendations, were also submitted by the participants during a day dedicated to political interpellation. A decisive advocacy activity for the future of people in street situations, which political and decision-makers must take into account as much as street social workers. With this action, we reaffirm, highlight and put into action the recognized function of social diagnosis of street social workers with the public authorities.Finally, the latest impacts of this project have been the revitalization of certain platforms of Dynamo International’s international network of social workers, in which we noted a renewed interest and willingness to take action on several levels. The physical encounter between the partners created an emulation in which new ideas for partnership projects were born within their country or in an international context. In particular, at the European level, the platforms will soon meet to help each other in advocacy campaigns at the regional level, and to make their projects coincide in order to put into action and at the service of young people several European initiatives, such as the European Youth Guaranty or the latest ALMA (Aim Learn Master Achieve) project, enabling young people with difficulties to do an internship abroad in Europe.