Act together for equal participation.

The purpose of the activity is to get together youth leaders from the youth NGOs which are working with young migrants, asylum seekers, refugees and internally displaced people in order to raise competences and knowledge on how to fight discrimination and promote the social participation of marginalized groups of young people by practicing the current methodology in their future activities.
The purpose of the activity is directly related to the mission of the “Great Silk Way” International Youth Union (GSW IYU), because one of the aims of GSW IYU is to raise the participation of youth and youth organizations in the processes going on in society and especially in decision making process and to conduct a cooperative work in the field of protection of rights and solution of youth problems.
GSW IYU is working towards protection of human rights, providing of citizen freedom and working towards strengthening of civil society.
At the moment the project group of GSW IYU is working on the 2-years program which will address the challenges that young people with different backgrounds are facing in their social lives. The purpose of the program is to raise awareness of local youth organizations about the importance and necessity of social participation of the different groups of young people. The program will comprise different activities (seminars, trainings, surveys on public opinion, interviews of local authorities and workshops at universities). During the program the skills of youth organizations on working with different groups of young people will be improved. The program will involve not only those youth organizations which are working with young migrants, but also those which are active in other fields of youth policy. The program is supposed to start in September 2013. It is also envisaged to have one regional meeting with participation of different youth platform organizations from neighboring European countries. So, the idea of fighting discrimination and inclusion of young people with different backgrounds will have a regional impact as well.
Realizing and implementation of the seminar described in this form will create an initial atmosphere not only for the future implementation of the work plan of GSW IYU, but also for other organizations which are involved in the process of fighting discrimination and promoting cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue on local, regional and European levels.
Aims and objectives of the activity.
The target group of the activity are young migrants, asylum seekers, refugees and IDPs. Therefore, the activity is primarily aimed at developing of the skills for fighting discrimination towards these groups of young people in order to promote active social participation of young migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and IDPs. Moreover, the activity is supposed to achieve the goal through the process of intercultural learning. Because intercultural learning that promotes intercultural dialogue will further result in developing anti-discrimination initiatives in the heads of participants.
Young migrants, asylum seekers, refugees and IDPs are facing the following challenges:
• Not involvement in the processes going on in the society over the certain political reasons;
• Lack of social accessibility;
• Unawareness of their own rights in order to fight for them;
• Discrimination over the national or local political circumstances;
• Language barrier;
• Lack of understanding of needs by the surrounding society;
• Unemployment and limited access to education;
• Social inequality;

The activities on non-discrimination and promoting cultural diversity will prompt and encourage the target groups to get involved in the process of active social participation on local, national and international levels taking into account the fact that young migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and IDPs are the most vulnerable groups of the society.

The aim of the seminar is to promote youth activities aimed at enhancement of social participation of young migrants, asylum seekers, refugees and IDPs by preparing and developing the certain skills of youth leaders from the youth NGOs working in this field and involving in the process of young migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and IDPs.
Objectives:
1. To identify the relevant activities to be used as means to counter the main challenges faced by the asylum seekers, young migrants, refugees and IDPs;
2. To prepare 34 young people for taking actions targeting inclusion of young migrants, asylum seekers, refugees and internally displaced people in social participation;
3. To strengthen the role of young people as the main actors defending the human rights and speaking up against the violation of human rights;
4. To promote and insinuate the main European values in youth work aimed at promotion of democratic and equal participation;
5. To further develop already existing competences of participants in the field of human rights activism, social participation and intercultural dialogue;
6. To empower young people with the certain knowledge to fight discrimination and promote cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue;
7. To provide participants with the space for learning and exchange of the learnt things;