Illustration by Mireille van Bremen

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Back Enter! – in and out

Photos: copyright Council of Europe

Photos: copyright Council of Europe

Enter! – in and out

On roots, sources, origins and impact of Enter!

 

 by Nadine Lyamouri-Bajja 

08/04/2020

 

When I was asked to write this article about the origins and impact of Enter!, I heard myself saying yes before I could even think about it. How could that happen? First of all, I do not believe I’m particularly gifted in writing, secondly, I don’t have the time… But this yes came from deep inside, because it was about Enter! 

So here I am.

The Enter! project remains one of the most powerful and meaningful youth work and training projects I was lucky enough to be involved in. 

I started to work as an educational advisor in the European Youth Centre of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg in early 2006. Just before that, in October 2005,

In the French media you could read headlines such as “Is the Republic burning?”, or “When the neighbourhoods are burning”. 

Some weeks after the violent confrontations between the police and young people in so-called “disadvantaged neighbourhoods” or “popular neighbourhoods”, the political debate starts shifting towards the “identity crisis” of multicultural young people raised in these neighbourhoods, about their confusion between their countries of origin and their French identity or citizenship, about integration policies and equal opportunities, about discrimination and communitarianism (a word used in a sociopolitical context to explain that more importance is given to the community than to the individual). 

I remember sitting in my office one night with Peter Lauritzen1 discussing youth participation, violence, exclusion and discrimination in relation to young people in the suburbs and areas with fewer opportunities. I remember us talking about how youth work could possibly reach out to those young people and areas. And I remember us wondering about how an organisation such as the Council of Europe could possibly contribute to this work, as the situation was far from concerning only France. 

 

 

 Enter! begins

I was therefore particularly enthusiastic and motivated when the Enter! project on the access to social rights of young people from disadvantaged neighbourhoods was set up as a response to the growing concern of the European Steering Committee on Youth (CDEJ) and the Advisory Council on Youth (AC) about the inequalities and challenges related to social cohesion and inclusion of all young people, and especially those situated in “disadvantaged” neighbourhoods across the 47 member states of the Council of Europe. 

The project aimed at “developing youth policy responses to exclusion, discrimination and violence affecting young people in multicultural disadvantaged neighbourhoods”. 

I was directly involved in the preparation and implementation of various activities and steps of Enter!, but the most impacting for me, is the Long Term Training Course (LTTC)2.

The name of the project, “Enter!”, was given by the preparatory team of the first LTTC as a reference to inclusion, to being welcome to come in, as an invitation, and last but not least, as a reference to the button on the keyboard in line with the e-learning dimension of the course.

 

 Central questions for us

Among the many questions that came up during this training course, here are the ones that both the preparatory team, the participants and the young people involved mentioned:

The use of the concept “disadvantaged”: in the first LTTC, as well as the Enter! youth meetings and in the local projects, various youth workers and young people questioned the use of the word “disadvantaged”, as they could not identify with it as regards to their neighbourhoods. They described it as patronising and minimising potentials, the richness in community work and collective organisation. Although the word disadvantaged was chosen to describe the neighbourhoods as such, and not the people living in the neighbourhoods, this remained a debatable issue throughout the project.

This issue was partly taken up in the Enter! Recommendation CM/Rec(2015)3 on access of young people from disadvantaged neighbourhoods to social rights which was adopted by the Committee of Ministers in 2015, by “recognising that many young people from disadvantaged neighbourhoods are motivated to contribute to the improvement of their own situations and those of their communities; and recognising the positive role they and their organisations can play for social cohesion”.

  • The strong diversity of challenges and situations in those neighbourhoods from one member state to another, and sometimes from one region to another: although all participants could agree on the key issues of discrimination, exclusion and violence, the state responses and the access to basic needs varied greatly.
  • Social conditions and culture: in most cases, a direct link was drawn between the poor conditions in disadvantaged neighbourhoods and the population living there. Disadvantaged neighbourhoods are often inhabited by people with a migration background (even if sometimes third generation), refugees, asylum seekers or Roma people3). This often led to clear discrimination based on the locality and related to the type of population. 
  • Co-operation between Enter! participants, their sending organisations and local authorities: in the case of the LTTCs, participants were asked to develop local projects contributing to enhancing access to social rights for young people. The success of the projects did not only depend on the high investment and commitment of participants, but also on the actual involvement of their sending organisations, and furthermore on the opportunity to co-operate closely with local authorities. Although various seminars and meetings, as well as the co-operation with the Congress of Local and Regional authorities, who supported with close collaboration, co-operation remained one of the main challenges throughout Enter!
  • Reaching out to actual community leaders: as in some other specific projects, one could wonder about the capacity of an organisation such as the Council of Europe to reach out to local communities in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. In other words, did Enter! manage to work with the concerned target group? Access to information about such a project, the capacity to work and communicate in English or French, the capacity to fill in a complex application form, the time and capacities to develop local projects, all these criteria could contribute to favouring an exclusive group of participants.

 

 What made this project so special? 

Through the range of activities and formats in Enter!, the project aimed both at reaching out to communities through competence development and empowerment of youth workers, and at making a change at policy level through the recommendation and co-operation with local authorities. Finally, the beneficiaries – the young people in the neighbourhoods – were directly involved as well both through the local projects developed in the LTTC and through the youth meetings and the youth week. This cross-cutting approach, combining a bottom-up and a top-down approach, was both innovative and inclusive by itself. 

 

I remember when the participants of the first LTTC described their project ideas, with a high level of emotion, pride and commitment. Their engagement was not necessarily new. But formulating their project ideas through the lenses of social rights and human rights, on the basis of existing instruments, and with the support of the Council of Europe, made a difference. 

I remember hot discussions around a session on “human rights”, and how some participants mentioned that Roma young people in some settlements did not even have access to drinkable water, so that access to education, employment or leisure was not even to be mentioned. 

I also remember the permanent challenge of talking “about” certain groups of young people, rather than “with” them. The Enter! youth meeting and youth weeks, as well as the local projects developed within the LTTC, partly contributed to changing this paradigm, but the general challenge of fully including the concerned communities remained throughout the project.

Enter! surely did impact at various levels. Among the various impacts at youth work and youth policy level mentioned in the study on the Enter! project, here are some of the impacts that could be seen:

Enter! managed to raise awareness at European, national and local level about the situation in disadvantaged neighbourhoods on the one hand, and about social rights and instruments to protect social rights, on the other. 

As a result of the first Long Term Training Course, participants created the YSRN (Youth Social Rights Network), which continues to function as an international youth NGO, runs study sessions and international youth projects, and is strongly involved in networking and advocacy on social rights.

 

The Enter! youth meetings brought together young people, policy makers and field workers to discuss access to social rights through various perspectives, with various languages and with a highly solution-focused approach. Hundreds of young people contributed directly or indirectly to the development of the Enter! Recommendation CM/Rec (2015)3 on access of young people from disadvantaged neighbourhoods to social rights, which was adopted by the Committee of Ministers in 2015.

 

 Direct impact?

One could wonder if Enter! did directly improve access to health, education, employment, leisure, decent housing or non-discrimination for young people across Europe… there surely remains a long way to go, but both at youth work level and at policy level, milestones have been laid, and people’s competences are still being developed to contribute to social change. 

 

The youth sector of the Council of Europe is currently proceeding to review the implementation of the recommendation, which most probably will not show the direct impact of the Enter! project and recommendation. But it could surely focus on the fact that working on access to social rights needs time and commitment, as well as constant reminders to take access to social rights seriously. The topic is far from being over just because Enter! is. Many local organisations that got involved at all stages of Enter! are taking the recommendations, the lobbying work and the educational and youth policy work on board to continue advocating for access to social rights of all young people. Véronique Bertolle’s article “Entering the Enter! Youth week”, published in this issue of Coyote, gives a beautiful overview of the diversity of organisations, challenges and young people concerned. It also gives hope about the fact that the work is being pursued.

As for myself, I keep as a conclusion that context is everything. That it is rarely about people and capacities, but often about the resources and support they are given. And that the more challenges, the more resilience. 

 

 References

Lauritzen P. (2008), Eggs in a pan: speeches, writings and reflections, Council of Europe Publishing, Strasbourg.

 

1 Peter Lauritzen (1942-2007) was the former Head of the Youth Department. More can be read about Peter here or here.

2 I am referring to the first LTTC (2009-11). Since then, two further series of the LTTC have taken place.

3 The term “Roma and Travellers” is used at the Council of Europe to encompass the wide diversity of the groups covered by the work of the Council of Europe in this field: on the one hand a) Roma, Sinti/Manush, Calé, Kaale, Romanichals, Boyash/Rudari; b) Balkan Egyptians (Egyptians and Ashkali); c) Eastern groups (Dom, Lom and Abdal); and, on the other hand, groups such as Travellers, Yenish, and the populations designated under the administrative term “Gens du voyage”, as well as persons who identify themselves as Gypsies.

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Issue 29

All Rights Included. 
  Enter! Youth week   
  and beyond

 

Back From “GIVING” voice to “BEING” the voice

Photos: Cooperativa SEIES; o Setubalense

Photos: Cooperativa SEIES; o Setubalense

From “GIVING” voice to “BEING” the voice

Schools and NGOs working together on prevention of gender violence among young people through participatory action in school contexts 

 

 by Ana Morgado 

22/04/2020

 

In the last few years I have been working on various projects where public-sector schools and NGOs have been sharing their enthusiasm, skills and experiences to build around a shared desire to make a difference in young people’s lives and surrounding communities.

Along this path I have encountered public and civil sectors deeply committed to joint resources in achieving social change and opening up more co-operative and humanised ways of doing so, but I have faced many challenges in the way that both sectors perceive education, their roles and approaches towards the voice of young people and their social rights. In these happy and sometimes bumpy relationships I perceive myself as an intermediary who supports the building of trusting relationships amongst NGOs, schools and young students.

This article describes the project Young Boosters of Human Rights and Equality1 promoted by the Portuguese NGO Cooperativa SEIES and implemented in nine public schools in the district of Setúbal and surrounding communities. It also describes the challenges I faced as a youth worker in schools and what NGOs and public schools may face when working together on social rights.

 

 NGOs and public schools – how we moved forward on co-operating to foster gender equality among young people

The project Young Boosters of Human Rights and Equality was introduced to nine public schools in the territories of Sesimbra, Setúbal and Palmela, with the intention of strengthening initiatives and real participation of young students between 14 and 18 years of age in their schools and surrounding communities. The approach was through youth initiatives addressing the issues of inequality between girls and boys and tackling violence in intimate relationships, with the aim of primary prevention using participatory strategies based on the principles and values of non-formal education. 

Since the project had two contexts of implementation – schools and surrounding communities – it was supported by the three municipalities. They found space for it in schools through a real partnership based on an ecosystemic perspective (all the school community is involved at different levels – students, teachers, families and staff), and by fostering a culture of human rights and equality in different civil activities.

The educational approach chosen had its own “action-based architecture”. It was continuously rethought through co-decision making with the school community – teachers and students especially – combining organisational cultures, specificities and the needs of different schools, young people and localities. This was developed as follows:

 Involvement of local clusters of schools and/or secondary schools through partnership agreements. These included the participation of the schools’ head teachers and/or teachers responsible for certain departments with a strong interest in the topics and methodologies of the project. They also involved building a shared vision for the project, having in mind the specific needs of each school or a certain age group.

 Establishment of a team of teachers to follow the project continuously in each school throughout the year.

 Creation of a group of “Young Boosters for Human Rights and Equality” in each school (on a voluntary basis). 

 Introductory training on gender equality and violence2 in intimate relationships for all the Young Boosters. The training in every school was run by youth workers and took place during the winter or mid-term holidays. In the last year of the project some schools were open to offering their term times for the training. 

 Implementation of peer-to-peer workshops run by the various groups of Young Boosters on a theme of their choice in areas of human rights with a focus on gender equality, with second- and third-cycle students.

 Selection of a theme and proposal for a local community action (localised, by each youth group). During the three years of the project, students chose a joint inter-school large event, notably a peaceful march in the city of Setúbal, involving all schools (partners or not of the project) and other public and private entities.

 Creation of a Dialogue and Co-operation Group which consisted of students, a youth worker and teachers working together on the project, including monitoring and evaluating phases, deciding together and with equal power on the necessary steps of the project.

 Design and Implementation of “Youth Participation – A Tool for Learning” workshops for teachers on youth participation and gender equality.

 Creation of a “multi-handwritten” handbook (teachers, Young Boosters and Cooperativa SEIES) for teachers, to foster youth initiatives in schools and communities.

 Meetings of municipal youth workers and civil servants, with responsibilities in the domain of youth and civil society organisations to share practices and to design joint and localised strategies for the promotion and development of youth participation.

 

 Open to chaos and valuing all actions intended

As crucial to the participatory element of this project, I highlight here the foundations of the way we worked on the involvement and empowerment of young people we considered important: 

  1. stakeholders in a region or organisation learn to recognise and value what young people do and the ways they already informally practise and learn citizenship and participation. The approach goes beyond the logic of “giving” voice or “giving” space to young people, projecting the young person into “being” the voice, and knowing and recognising that young people have their own voice and space (often only known and recognised by themselves). We have to work continuously in acknowledging, recognising and interpreting these voices and spaces so that the sense of co-operation and co-responsibility becomes real. This acknowledgement and recognition of “being” the voice allowed us to create a space of interpersonal relationships which moved the individual/group to take actions based on collective motivations, interests and dreams, as well as with a shared sense of empathy and solidarity to create a feeling of “interbeing”;
  2. sharing of views, concerns and expectations by adults and the young people involved. The sharing of both adult and youth views will allow the development of these concepts (citizenship, participation, equality) and the vision of the results to be achieved; 
  3. promotion of inclusive action – recognising the existence of stereotypes, inequalities and violence. Promoting equality and the opportunity for relationships among adolescents from different social and cultural groups. Creating spaces and comfort zones for learning and changing mental patterns and social normalisation of inequality and violence in intimate relationships;

 

  1. valuing all actions intended by young people (small, large, local, national, inside and outside the school) and reflecting on their respective viability and consequences involving all the stakeholders;
  2. openness to chaos, unknowingness and spontaneous “social play”, because youth participation, however much we try to study and organise it, has a strong innate force of a chaotic nature. Likewise, always constituting itself as a learning process that takes different shapes and life from group to group and from context to context;
  3. recognising school and the project as a space for young people with young people. The desired boundaries are established, respected and negotiated with young people about the involvement of their families in the space of the project; 
  4. establishing relationships of trust between young participants in the project and their peers, thinking collectively about the best ways to prevent and monitor the situations of young peers who experience or are at risk of experiencing violence in intimate relationships;
  5. educating for action and social transformation – positively contributing/influencing based on the values ​​of equality, justice and solidarity for changing mental and behavioural patterns in families, peer groups, schools and communities.

 

 An NGO and a youth worker inside schools… sensitiveness was the mantra 

Intervention by NGOs with non-formal education has great potential for innovation, but it is limited in direct results due to the number of children and young people we reach. Due to its span and resources, the school, namely the public school, is one of the greatest experiences of education for citizenship of all young people, even when the school does not have a developed strategy of citizenship education, curricular or not.

NGOs specialising in human rights, citizenship and gender equality can act as a catalyst for developments in schools and co-builders of educational resources and youth empowerment, with visible direct results. But most importantly, the impact of this work results essentially from the level of school involvement and the value/dimension it gives to the sustainability of the results.

The combined work of NGOs and schools needs results which give the schools experience in non-formal citizenship education activities, pedagogical resources for later use and training of students and teachers from all cycles of education to become multipliers of citizenship and human rights education (sustainability factors). 

In my experience as a youth worker in local and European projects in which NGOs and public schools partner on social rights (notably the project Network of Democratic Citizenship Schools promoted by Cooperativa ECOS and the project Schools of Active Citizenship promoted by YUPI – Associação), I would like to list the following elements to consider when working together with schools:

  1. Nowadays most of us have or had the opportunity to go to school (or have a child that is currently going) and we have all developed an emotional relationship with it. This means that all of us have an opinion on how school should be, how it should work and how it should approach students, teachers and parents. I found it essential to open the space for teachers and students to share their stories in relation to schools before I started to work with them directly.
  2. Schools have a very different “tempo” from NGOs and hierarchical structures. Having the school decision makers involved since day one and keeping them in the loop is essential to speeding up some of the processes… just some! Trying to compromise and having in mind during the project planning all the school breaks, exam times and the commitments of the teachers and students I was working with was of help!
  3. It was very important that teachers do not feel under scrutiny. Most teachers, I gathered, felt that some stereotypical or discriminatory comments about topics tackled in their classes were their fault. It was important to create the space to demystify that violence and unbalanced power relations are conveyed through many channels and contexts!
  4. My training on non-formal education within the framework of TRAYCE (Training of Trainers for Youth in the Council of Europe), together with the opportunities I had to be involved in the ENTER! project, allowed me not only to be able to have a positive influence and a more critical perspective towards the described pedagogical approach of the project, but also to have a greater picture about the situation of social rights in Europe and the political work that needs to be done at local level to advocate for the rights of young people experiencing violence, discrimination and exclusion close to public schools and local authorities.

  1. Here, I would like to emphasise how challenging it can be to bring to organisations, including NGOs, a certain political dimension of the work that needs to be done along with social work that I, as a youth worker, feel is also my responsibility to do. NGOs, especially youth organisations or organisations working with and for young people, implementing projects in partnership with hierarchical, complex and, above all, power structures like schools and municipalities tend to struggle to influence political decisions on these matters. For me, it only reinforces the importance of having young people in all contexts of education deeply informed, involved and empowered to be voices standing for the implementation of public policies that take into consideration their specific needs when it comes to SOCIAL RIGHTS!

  1. I found it very difficult to engage teachers in non-planned activities as well as to keep up their motivation when things went in a different direction. The groups for co-operation and dialogue, where they could feel the motivation and commitment of some students as well as the youth worker, were essential!
  2. Schools receive NGOs with a lot of hope and sometimes NGOs are seen as THE SOLUTION! for certain problems. It was really important to make it clear for everyone the nature of my experience, my personal and professional limitations, the existing resources and the scope and objectives of the project and to keep all this alive throughout the entire project.
  3. Most of the time schools resist making financial investment in such projects. It is essential to discuss the limitations or opportunities that the financial investment can bring to the results of the project. 
  4. Work with an approach that is neither competitive, substitutive nor parallel. Work together. Sharing leadership from activity to activity was essential to brush away remarks from both sides, such as: “they think they know better” or “they don’t know anything about the way we do things”.
  5. The results are seen year after year. Creating professional yet informal relationships with interlocutors in schools was very important to allow for certain things to happen. Nothing was done without consent and we tried to make a compromise between the more impetuous wills of young people and at times the more conservative approaches of certain teachers or schools by creating spaces for dialogue and making decisions together.
  6. I found it quite challenging to picture clearly the boundaries between being a youth worker, and the professional values and approaches it encompasses, and a social worker, especially when it comes to situations related to violence, privacy and dealing with child protection authorities. It is essential to find in teams and organisations a multidisciplinary team that combines approaches in an integrated way.
  7. To conclude, I would like to share with you that after these experiences of working together with social workers, other youth workers, teachers, students, parents and civil servants to promote more inclusive and equal cultures in school contexts and communities, I firmly believe that equality and participation are learnt through intersecting formal and non-formal educational spaces where they are practised with the use of critical thinking to develop these skills and where there is a strong coherence between the contents, the contexts and the pedagogical strategies adopted.

1 The original name of the project in Portuguese is “Jovens Impulsionadoras e Impulsionadores de Direitos Humanos e Igualdade” and the project was funded by the Portuguese Secretary of State for Citizenship and Equality.

2 As manuals for the training, we adapted activities from the following manuals: “Gender matters: a manual on addressing gender-based violence affecting young people”, 2007; Raparigas e Rapazes nas Associações Juvenis: um guia para o mainstreaming de género and “Have your say!”.

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