Per Esempio Onlus
Per Esempio Onlus is a non-profit organization set up in Palermo, Italy in 2011 by a small group of young workers aiming to develop actions promoting social inclusion and community empowerment. Since then Per Esempio Onlus has implemented many projects focusing on the fight against educational deprivation, active participation, gender empowerment and on children, youth and adult education. Its overall objective is to support people with fewer opportunities to undertake a path of educational, cultural and economic development, in a context respectful of rights and diversities. Per Esempio Onlus implements its activities involving people from disadvantaged areas of the city of Palermo, such as the neighbourhood of Ballarò – where its premises are located –, Borgo Vecchio and ZEN. These are the places where the organization also implement international mobility and volunteering projects for young people coming to Palermo from all over the world.
Website: www.peresempionlus.org
Merseyside Expanding Horizons
Merseyside Expanding Horizons (MEH) is an established voluntary and community sector organisation. MEH focus on Social Inclusion through partnership to deliver projects supporting disadvantaged individuals into employment, training and self-employment and social enterprise development through a wide range of informal learning methodologies, we deliver services to and support a range of excluded groups.
MEH has a wealth of experience in supporting individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds to participate fully in society through learning. We have experience of running volunteer mentoring programmes which support members of the community including ethnic minorities, isolated women and men, people with mental health problems to develop their skills and competence in employment and self-employment.
Our team is drawn from a diverse background and includes, careers advice, adult education, health and wellbeing, social work and psychology, research, intercultural dialogue, business start-up and the private sector.
Website: www.expandinghorizons.co.uk
United Societies of Balkans
United Societies of Balkans (U.S.B.) is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation based in Thessaloniki, Greece working in the field of youth, human rights and intercultural dialogue. It was founded in 2008 by the inception of a group of active young people who wanted to address the social issues which affect the youngsters in the Balkans and Eastern Europe. The vision and aim of the organisation is the promotion of youth empowerment, participation in the economic and political life, youth mobility, voluntarism, and human rights.
Fields of work: Youth work, non-formal education, human rights, arts, intercultural dialogue, new media, gender related issues, ecology and sports.
Activities: Key areas of the organisation’s activities concern the defense of human rights and the intercultural dialogue, the organisation of youth related projects such as youth exchanges and training courses, which can bring young people from Balkans and Europe together, and the organisation of local interventions, campaigns, researches, seminars and multimedia productions. It envisions a global and inclusive society, where citizens are equally empowered to contribute in the shaping of a world with less prejudice, discrimination and other forms of injustice.
Website: www.usbngo.gr
AWO Bremerhaven
AWO Kreisverband Bremerhaven e.V. (German charity organisation) espouses a democratic, solidary and equitable society and helps all who are in need – regardless of their colour of skin, nationality, religion or belief. We believe that solidarity is the most important feature of a European civil society and we are committed to democracy and justice.
The main fields of our work are early childhood education, speech therapy for children and adults, children and youth services, social counselling and work with immigrants and refugees, drug addiction, social psychiatry; work with elderly as well as trainings and qualification. According to this we have varied and diverse target groups. In more than 70 services and facilities with over 1,000 full-time employees, we take care and cope with many thousands of people. Time-limited projects to prevent youth unemployment, to support the employment of immigrants, former drug addicted, or unemployed people are also important parts of our work, as well as vocational training and further education in the field of social work.
In co-operation with other democratic youth associations we lobby for effective youth politics. To especially improve the educational and professional situation of socially disadvantaged children and adolescents is another important aim we stand up for. Besides the Welcome classes in the childcare centre CONNECT, which is a first step in the integration of minor migrant children and adolescents, there are also different projects and activities taking place in the childcare centre CONNECT, e.g. dancing, music, sports, cooking, theatre and computer lessons, peer mediation and civil courage trainings or gender-related offers such as activities only for girls.
Website: www.awo-bremerhaven.de
Arte Migrante
Arte Migrante is a non-party and a non-denominational group that was born in 2012 in Bologna, Italy. It organizes weekly meetings that are open to everybody, aiming at promoting inclusion though art. It welcomes students, migrants, homeless people, workers, unemployed, young people and elders. Over the years the group has grows and nowadays we can find many dynamic groups all over Italy: Bologna, Modena, Parma, Reggio Emilia, Imola, Rimini, Pisa, Torino, Cuneo, Settimo Torinese, Alessandria, Alba, Milano, Como, Trento, Padova, Naples, Latina, Cagliari and Palermo. It is also present in Spain and in Cyprus island and in Denver, USA.
Our weekly event is structured three moments:
A presentation game, to know each other and “break the ice”.
A shared dinner, in which everybody can bring his or her favourite or traditional dish.
Last but not least: the moment in which everybody can share “something” with the circle: “something” can be a dance, some music, a poem, a teathrical piece… everything!!! But everything that is not offensive, xenophobic, omophobic, racist, sessist.
Every year we organize a national summer camping open to everybody who wants to join. It’s a moment to stay together, get to know people from other cities, learn new things and stay in nature.
For us, the most important thing with which you can start to practice intagration is to learn and practice the art of listening. If you don’t listen to the others, you can not know the others, and that will bring to you beeing scared of them.
We are organized in “coordination groups”.
Everybody who wants to help in organizing the weekly events, parties, public events, musical shows, workshops, meetings… everybody can join the coordination groups. There is no gerarchical structure: everybody is important and has the right to speak and show his/her point of view. We try to take decisions in a consensual way. Every decision is changeable!
Website: www.artemigrante.eu
Asociación Caminos
The activities of the non-profit association “Caminos” founded in 2014 are dedicated to the field of education and social work.
Our name “Caminos” (Spanish for “paths”) indicates the importance of finding new ways to reach goals and discover individual resources and opportunities to overcome challenges together.
Main objectives include fostering the exchange and communication, improving individual opportunities of development, supporting the social inclusion of disadvantaged people and developing innovative methodologies in the field of training, education and social development through national and international cooperation.
Due to our staff experience our main target groups are:
- Young people (professional and personal issues)
- Pupils and teachers
- Staff trainings
- Women and gender projects
- Migrants and their integration
Website: www.asoccaminos.org
Grdr Migration-Citoyennete-Development
GRDR Migration-Citoyenneté-Développement is an international NGO that has been working since 1969 to promote the local development of territories while accompanying migrants in their host territory and in their projects for their region of origin. The Grdr bases its action on three pillars: proximity at the local level, the valorisation of interdependencies on a transnational or international scale, the production of knowledge on and for the territories.
The Grdr has been working for 50 years in the service of local development in connection with migration between France (particularly in 3 regions of immigration where the Grdr has set up branches: Île-de-France, Hauts-de-France and Upper Normandy) and West Africa where it is present in 4 West African countries (Senegal, Mali, Mauritania and Guinea Bissau). The Grdr’s action is structured around two main axes: human mobility and citizen governance of the territories.
The France/ Europe team works to promote the integration and social inclusion of immigrants from developing countries. In France, Grdr collaborates with organizations of development education, popular education, in the artistic field, to promote openness to the other and the world for young people, to change attitudes toward migration, and to fight against stereotypes and discriminations.
Website: www.grdr.org
