Illustration by Mireille van Bremen

in this issue

Back Enter! – in and out

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 What we brought and what we take away

Photos: Les Fourchettes de l’Espoir & Council of Europe

What we brought and what we take away

Canadian perspective on the Enter! Youth Week

by Maïssa Saint-Joy

20/04/2020

What brought us to the ENTER! all the way from Canada

The Canadian delegation was made up of representatives (six) from the Youth Council of Montreal North and the community organisation Les Fourchettes de l’Espoir (in English the name would mean Forks of Hope). I personally came to represent Les Fourchettes de l’Espoir, which provides support and accompaniment to the poorest of Montreal North by promoting their integration into the job market while providing them with access to varied and quality food. Les Fourchettes works with all ages. However, I work there more specifically with young Montrealers aged 14 and 15. Each summer, we receive around 60 of these young people and we accompany them in the discovery of their socio-professional path within a programme called Ma Première Expérience de Travail (in English, my first work experience). At the Enter! Youth Week, I was accompanied by two former participants of this programme Dorothy Armand-Lima and Perrye-Delphine Séraphin.

Firstly, this question was asked to us SEVERAL TIMES and it amused us! It reassured us to know that Canada has indeed had observer status with the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe since 1996 and that it has had a few opportunities to co-operate on doping and cybercrime cases, for example. We were the only observer state present at Enter! Youth Week. As our country adheres to and promotes the principles of democracy, fundamental freedoms and human rights, we become a partner of choice for the Council of Europe, which is trying to advance these causes within Europe and elsewhere. So, our presence at the youth week was above all to promote these values and disseminate and improve the implementation of the week’s recommendations.

Although Canada is not part of Europe, we agree that the recommendations could also apply to the reality of young Montrealers living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. By reading various documents concerning the recommendations, we realised that our young people could experience the same obstacles to full access to their social rights.

Thousands of young Canadians live in conditions of deprivation¹. This is the case of the young people from the neighbourhood we came to represent, Montreal North. A district where cultural diversity and youth reign. In fact, 18% of the population is between 0 and 14 years old, placing it in fifth place among the youngest boroughs in Montreal. In addition, almost 43% of the population is a visible minority. Unfortunately, the northern residents of Montreal aged 25 and over are the most numerous in the metropolitan area with no diploma (1 in 4 people) and with a low activity and employment rate. If some people feel disillusioned and overwhelmed by the youth and the “millennials”, I think that it is the latter who make the district shine and which gives it hope for a better future.

We therefore felt concerned by the theme of the Enter! week, seeing it as an opportunity to learn the best practices from Europe in terms of youth intervention in a precarious socio-economic context and to share our own practices. A cultural mixture that was enriching.

Importance of non-formal education by Europe

We were pleasantly surprised to see that the Council of Europe continues to want to develop initiatives aimed at improving the quality of community or not-for-profit social services for young people. We have understood that community organisations in Canada and in Europe represent safe spaces that promote young people’s access to their social rights. When formal spaces, such as schools or government structures, may have gaps in the quality of services, organisations can successfully overcome the difficulties. The week clearly demonstrated that the work of community organisations can make all the difference in the lives of young people, especially those who are immigrants.

We believe that the well-being of the socio-economically precarious Canadian and Quebec youth could certainly benefit from such an event.

It is a real advantage to have an institution of the magnitude of the Council of Europe investing itself humanly and financially, and as regularly, in non-formal education. Nevertheless, the youth week has shown us that it is not only a question of giving funds but of looking into the quality of services, developing and deploying best practices so that the greatest number of people enjoy it. The existence and formula of the event allows the Council of Europe to collect the priority needs of youth workers and the youth itself. Based on these needs, the Council of Europe aims to reassess the implementation of recommendations by member states in terms of access to social rights among young people. Thus, the youth week is the epitome of the horizontal or collaborative approach possible between community organisations and political bodies. By building on the needs of the community, we make sure that the money invested does not get lost in negligent or paradoxical practices.

The neighbourhood that we came to represent benefits from a large number of youth organisations, and for good reason. Its population is very young and non-formal education is a variable that can offset socio-economic precariousness. As mentioned above, Montreal North is a district where the rate of professional inactivity is high, thus contributing to the poverty of its inhabitants. The existence of programmes aimed at young people such as Ma Première Expérience de Travail (my first work experience) can contribute to improving the living conditions of future adults in the neighbourhood by allowing them to discover a professional passion that hooks them into school. However, as a resident and a youth worker, I often question myself about the quality of services offered to these young people. Does a high number of community organisations rhyme with quality services? An event such as the youth week, even within a borough in Quebec, would ensure that the mandates of these different organisations do meet the needs of the main stakeholders, the youth and the youth workers. And, that the services offered can be inspired by best practices. The youth week is an inspirational collaborative model that could be implemented in Canada. In this sense, I particularly appreciated the recommendation emanating from the week on developing online training for workers on social rights in order to supervise their practices. In fact, a meeting between all the Canadian participants and the borough hall is planned in the near future. We will therefore have the opportunity to present the idea of such an event.

Empowering young people

In conclusion, we retain that the youth week sent a strong message to young people: we want to hear from you and give you the means to act on the issues that you think are the highest priorities. Young people must be able to have equal access to places of decision making, such as in political parties, in the boards of directors of organisations, etc. For example, in Quebec, youth council exists where young people can advise the mayor on the issues related to them. Otherwise, the lack of representativeness within these circles can give the youth the impression that they are closed to them and they have no place in them.

During the week we discussed technological education among young people. Social media applications are massively used by them and they contain a ton of unverified information. In little work groups, we have thought about ways to counter this era of forgery among this population. It’s a mission that is close to my heart since I do scientific research in knowledge transfer, an area that seeks to bridge the gap between scientists and users of science and the general public. I hope to be able to carry out an initiative inviting young people from Montreal North to demystify fake news or questionable information in their social networks in a discussion group. Overall, our participation at the youth week was rewarding for us and our European colleagues. We hope that other disadvantaged neighbours from Canada will have the chance to live this experience.