Ethnic minorities and active youth participation

Globallove Youth Trust (Wales, UK) & Center for

Intercultural Dialogue (MK) – Youth in Action

Programme: Action 3.1

Youth Participation &

Ethnic Minorities A Facilitation Handbook Marina Kovacev, Olsi Dudumi, Natasha Mraovic, Kristina Miladinova, Peter Sharpe, Carmen Sacchetti & Sonja Velic

“ACTive YOUth!!!” 16th

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of June 2013 Mavrovo, Macedonia

Youth in action Programme: Action 3.1 Seminar

Ethnic Minorities and Active Youth Participation

Introduction

Contemporary societies in the world are distinguished for their diverse ethnic groups.

Through recent globalization immigration has increased while at the same time in

many of these countries lives different ethnic groups often known as Old Minorities.

Bringing together the minorities with majority population for the prosperity of the

whole society has been the concern of many organizations in these countries. At the

same time many Youth Organizations work extensively to include young people from

the minorities and majority to actively participate in bringing down ethnic tensions

and positively changing their environment.

However many obstacles arise in this process of the Youth Organizations, which

decreases the participation of youth from minority and majority groups. In this

handbook we point out the different obstacles whichfect youth participation. By

pointing out these obstacles we try to shed light to the conditions that encourage the

active participation of youth in the work of the Organizations. In the end we bring out

different solutions for overcoming the obstacles and challenges.

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How can we get more and more young people to get involved in youth activities? As

youth workers we have to work with young people from ethnic minorities and ensure

that we include them in our activities that we put on. We need to work to find ways

that allows young people join in all our activities no matter what. We have to make all

the activities that we do accessible to all so that no one person or group feels

excluded or unable to participate. We have looked at the topics below and though

what some of the problems are and ways to enable greater participation and some

solutions. Below our thoughts on what these are.


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Obstacles

Many of these written under obstacles cause problems and stop young people

interacting and stop ethnic minorities from getting involved. A lot of these have lots of

different ways in which they affect young people. Understanding these is important in

tackling these obstacles.

Lack of Cultural and Religious Knowledge might be one of the most important

obstacles. Because of different traditions and way of life, the young people from

different ethnic groups often have separated lives. Although they may live in the

same cities and towns they do not have knowledge about the others and in many

cases this steps them down in learning about each other. On the other hand this lack

of Cultural knowledge might be present in the Youth Worker which then might lead to

mistrust by the youth minorities or majorities.


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Language can be the most evident divide between the communities which

separates them from daily communication. Although there might be existence of

motivation for cooperation the lack of language knowledge by the youth minority and

majority or the youth workers themselves creates barriers.

Location of organization offices or Youth centres create obstacles in the

participation by the young people in the different activities, projects and programmes

which aim at bringing the young people together. This happens in most of the cases

because the youth doesn’t feel safe in the others communities area. Another

obstacle is that the location might be hard to be reached.

Different interpretations of past History leads to an increase of Nationalism within

both minority and majority groups. On the other hand these two obstacles create

Prejudice and Stereotypes for the people of these communities which increase the

Community Divide and acts as an important factor and external pressure for the

formation of the ideas and the mind-set of the young people.

Another main obstacles which is often overlooked is the Human and Financial

Resource which the Youth Organizations have available.


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Conditions that encourage participation

What can help create an environment that young people from different groups can

have benefit from and be able to participate on equal terms? Each one of these

points is Specific to different groups and activities but here is a general overview.


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Solutions

After analysing obstacles and conditions for encouraging youth of ethnic minorities

for active participation, next step is thinking about possible solutions and ideas for

innovative approach which could inspire youth to be active, no meter of their ethnical

background. Here are some of suggestions:


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Examples of practical solutions for some of obstacles:

Location - establish youth center in neutral areas.

– make the location accesable to everyone

– decorate the enviromet with symbols from each etnic minorty

Community divide- ask the goverment to lower the prices of flats in one segregated

area.

- mixed classes in school

- more youth centre’s that gather different groups

Lack of will - promoting in local media examples of good practise and iniciatives of

young people.

Nationalism - workshops with role plays.

– campaigns with short, clear messages that brake stereotypes

Language - one person speaking both lanuages, to person speaking each of the

langueges, speaking of third language, translators.

- language wrokshops and language courses

A Small Comic Strip to Shoe the Obstacles & Solutions for Youth Participation with Ethnic Minorities:


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Authors:

Marina Kovacev (Serbia)

Olsi Dudumi (Albania & Italy)

Natasha Mraovic (Macedonia & Serbia)

Kristina Miladinova (Macedonia)

Sonja Velic (Serbia)

Peter Sharpe (UK)

Carmen Sacchetti (Italy)

Ethnic minorities and active youth participation

Documents

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