Workshop: Navigating from education to employment in crisis and uncertainty

Zoe Jordan writes:

Young people’s position in the labour market is increasingly precarious and uncertainty is an ever-present dimension for young people living in protracted displacement and other crisis settings. Over the last decade, much progress has been made in developing frameworks to provide education in crisis. However, there is currently limited research examining the relationship between education and employment prospects in such contexts.

As part of the ESRC/GCRF and IDRC funded research programme “From education to employment. Trajectories for young people in Lebanon and Jordan in the context of protracted displacement”, CENDEP, in collaboration with the Centre for Lebanese Studies (CLS), is hosting an international workshop responding to the need for greater insight into young people’s trajectories from education to employment in crisis settings from 28 – 29 April 2020. Preliminary findings from the research programme will be presented, and we invite researchers and policy makers working in other contexts of uncertainty to join us to share insights, analytical approaches, and empirical realities.

We will be questioning education and employment strategies among young people and their families in the context of crisis; intersectionality and its workings in young people’s trajectories, focusing particularly on legal status, gender, disability, class and other social positions; the relevance of education for employment in the context of protracted displacement; and how young people are categorized and conceptualised, and its implications for policy and practice.

Paper presentations (15 – 20 minutes) and interventions for a roundtable discussion (5 minutes) are invited. Please send short abstracts (up to 200 words) indicating which format you would like to present, to Zoe Jordan (zjordan@brookes.ac.uk) by 17 March 2020.

To find out more: https://www.brookes.ac.uk/about-brookes/events/navigating-from-education-to-employment-in-crisis-and-uncertainty/

United for freedom: support Refugee Youth Service on 16 October

CENDEP has a particular connection to Refugee Youth Service, which was set up by DEP alumni Jonny Willis and Ben Teuten in 2015. Please support RYS's 24-hour fundraising appeal.

Refugee Youth Service and Velos Youth are grassroots organisations providing in partnership, since 2015, safe sanctuaries and opportunities for wellbeing and growth to young people on the move, in France, Greece and Italy.

While the “refugee crisis” fades away from public eye, thousands of young people, many of them unaccompanied minors, are struggling their way to a more humane future, away from conflict and deprivation.

Refugee Youth Service & Velos Youth are places for first - arrivals and second chances, serving the most marginalised ones with persistent attention, aid and hope.

On October 16th at 6am GMT/8am EET, Refugee Youth Service and Velos Youth will be holding a 24-hour campaign to raise £10,000 to support their work. Your partnership in this campaign will provide the critical resources needed to track, monitor and support vulnerable unaccompanied minors and young people across Europe, keeping them away from traffickers and exploitative persons, and into new lives and towards brighter futures! 

Here is a link to our campaign page, and here’s how you can get involved:

• Share! Send texts, emails, messages, WhatsApp blasts and more to your contacts to let them know we are having a campaign and need their support.
• Give! Whether it’s £18, £180 or £1,800, your gift creates a powerful impact in the lives of vulnerable unaccompanied minors and youth across Europe. The 1^st £1000 will be doubled by our match funder!

Many thanks for reading, now please spread the word!

Jonny, James, Hayley, Stavros, Mustafa, Faridoon, Raia, Faz, Denia, Dana and all of the RYS team

xxx

Velos Youth Centre - support for young refugees in Athens

Amanda Regan (DEP 2014-15) writes:

I started my journey with Refugee Youth Service as a volunteer in the unofficial Calais Camp last year and I am now the Operations Officer for our projects across Europe. Essentially, this means I work from my laptop in London supporting the operations of each project in ever changing contexts. To get a better idea of how things move on the ground in our project sites, I took time to visit the fantastic support being delivered to children and young people through the projects in Calais and Ventimiglia this spring.

Velos Youth Centre in Athens had recently opened (four weeks to be exact) and knowing how much preparation the team in Greece had put in to kick starting the project, I took an opportunity to head out there and see the magic for myself for the first time.

On taking off from Luton, I had the usual mix of apprehension of visiting yet another place where children and young people face risks most would not dream of. In the year I have been working with children and young people on the move, I have learned of the diverse and frankly terrifying experiences which drive these young people to leave their homes. They face more risks travelling from Middle Eastern and African countries to the European frontier in Italy and Greece. Many will then proceed to move across internal EU borders to find family members, known diaspora communities or just to somewhere they have been told is safe. 

Once in Athens, I realised that although I had good reason for the apprehension, I was also filled with an incredible sense of pride for the services that RYS is providing through Velos Youth to support young people in the city. 

Up six floors in a rickety lift, the Velos Youth space is bright and furnished with handmade sofas, coffee tables and desks (the products of one of the very first practical workshops the young people participated in with a local carpenter). My first contact with the staff was warm as I was welcomed into the space. I thought at the time, how positive it would be for a young person to step over the threshold and be met with smiling faces, someone who would be able to speak their language (we have a bunch of wonderfully knowledgeable and multilingual youth assistants) and an introduction to all the wonderful activities and services there are available to them. On the first day, I walked into an acupuncture workshop which was quickly followed by a delicious home made lunch from the Velos Youth kitchen. In the afternoon, a Krav Maga specialist arrived and delivered a workshop on non-violent de-escalation techniques which was welcomed by the young people using the service that day with some inferring it is a much needed skill. 

It didn’t take long to get stuck in to the daily running of the centre, meeting the young service users and helping out with running activities. Each day more and more young people were accessing the space and services. Sometimes this was a result of word of mouth and young people bringing their friends along with them. The most powerful testament to the outreach work carried out twice a week, was the number of young people arriving with the small flyer in their hands which they were given during a street session. It was during these street sessions, my initial apprehensions regarding the acute risks children face throughout their journeys were realised. Children and young people are facing exploitation on a nightly basis in a nearby square. It is open and blatant to anyone who would spend 10 minutes there. I observed young people being misinformed about the cost of legal services by men who appeared to be Greek nationals. The men, who would give drastically inflated costs for necessary services for refugees, would then  provide ‘opportunities’ for the young people to earn the money through various types of work. Street workers from partner organisations informed me that this would take the form of domestic servitude and sexual exploitation. Alongside the risk of exploitation, the majority of young people are faced with homelessness or resort to staying in one of the many squatted buildings in the central city area. The Greek authorities and UNHCR are overwhelmed by the situation and this can be seen in the long waiting periods for accommodation and cash cards. In the meantime, without secure shelter and some cashflow young people are most at risk of exploitation. 

This is why the services at Velos Youth are so important. Using a case management system, trained staff are able to support young people become self sufficient and secure accommodation, gain legal advice, and identify their own pathways to a healthier and wealthier life.

At the very least they can grab a hot shower, bung their washing in the machine and wait for it to dry whilst tucking in to a hearty meal (prepared by young people) before playing a round of Uno with friends. 

I am proud to be part of a team of professionals driven to create immediate safety for vulnerable children and young people as well as aiming to create long term solutions for their safety, security and immigration status. 

Thank you to all of our supporters and partners. Without you we would not have been able to achieve positive outcomes for the children and young people we serve. That said there is still much to be done on all scales to address the needs and to fulfil the human rights of all displaced people.

Cross-posted from the Refugee Youth Service blog.

To support us to continue our work with for children and young people across Europe, follow the link to our fundraising page: https://mydonate.bt.com/charities/refugeeyouthservice

To keep updated with our activities across our projects, ‘Like’ us on Facebook @RefugeeYouthService 

Follow individual projects on Twitter:

@VelosYouth, @RYS_Calais and @RYS_Italy 

One year of the EU-Turkey deal - Refugee Youth Service

Jonny Willis and Ben Teuten (DEP 2014-15) write:

March 2017 marked one year of the EU-Turkey refugee deal - a deal that allowed Europe to return asylum seekers from Greece to Turkey and closed borders across the Balkans, halting the onward journey of many across Western Europe.

In a recent article in the Guardian newspaper, John Dalhuisen, Amnesty’s Europe director, reflected on the anniversary: “Today marks a dark day in the history of refugee protection – one in which Europe’s leaders attempted to buy themselves out of their international obligations, heedless of the cost in human misery. A year ago, the Greek islands were transformed into de facto holding pens, as Europe’s shores went from being sites of sanctuary into places of peril. One year on, thousands remain stranded in a dangerous, desperate and seemingly endless limbo.”

Today Refugee Youth Service stands with international organisations, grassroot projects, solidarity groups and individuals in denouncing this deal and calling on the European Union to find a better way forward to alleviate the suffering of the refugees and migrants in Greece and across Europe, giving them their right to a better future. It is estimated that around 60,000 asylum seekers currently reside within Greek borders.

Since arriving in Athens, we have met many young refugees and migrants who have been surviving on the city streets for the past year; some trying to be part of meaningful activities in the daytime- language classes at community centres or helping with translation in the squats- whilst others have become dependant on substances and find their only source of income (as they have no address to receive cash based assistance) in criminal activities related to smuggling, drugs and sex work.  

RYS has therefore decided to open safe space in the heart of the community, for vulnerable young people aged 16-21, who will be welcome regardless of their race/ethnicity, cultural background, or religious affiliation. The space will be ran by a primarily Greek and migrant staff team and will provide a place where young people can feel safe, take respite, seek emotional and material support, and connect with those services offering more specialist support including legal and psychological counsel.

It is likely that borders will remain closed for years to come, and whilst we continue in the campaign to fix this broken system we must also address the long-term needs of the young people who are forced to exist within it. We are therefore running a youth empowerment training programme within this space, enabling and inspiring young people to generate visions for their futures, create innovative personal development plans and have the confidence and resources to action them.

To support our essential work please click here and donate today. If you would like to give regularly please contact athens@refugeeyouthservice.net