“Room for Effective Integration” Project’s Partnership Building Activity Was Held in Dobele, Latvia, on 10 – 17 December 2022

“Room for Effective Integration” Project’s Partnership Building Activity Was Held in Dobele, Latvia, on 10 – 17 December 2022

The activity started with a visit to Riga City Council and met the newly-elected Chairwoman of the Education, Culture and Sport committee of the Council – Laima Geikina Rīga. Laima introduced participants, the youth workers from across Germany, Turkey, Egypt, the Netherlands, Cyprus and Latvia, to how the City Council functions, and we discussed various challenges the City has within the field of youth work. We very much congratulate Laima’s priorities as the Head of the Committee – to prioritise the work with young people and focus on improving the youth work in the City.

The group visited Lapas LV and met the director of the organization – Inese Vaivare on the second day of the activity. It was a super exciting meeting, with plenty of new project ideas and a hope for future collaboration. LAPAS has done immense work in Latvia and globally. We very much appreciate the work the organization has done to raise awareness locally of how connected the world is and how much the problems faced by communities abroad affect our daily lives within our societies. The day ended with a visit to the Parliament of the Republic of Latvia!

On the third day, participants tried to understand the so-called obvious!? – “What is a migrant?” Aren’t we all? They worked out of the EU House. Thanks to the European Union House for housing the group, they explored and agreed on what they saw of newcomers.

On the fourth day, participants spent a day discussing and planning a social campaign to portray the positive aspects of migration.

During the week, participants explored and shared various and quite diverse good practices to foster the inclusion of newcomers within their communities more effectively. They elaborated on the need for more effective and long-term public institution support for NGOs to continue teaching local languages, develop language learning materials and increase the availability of local language courses.

#ErasmusPlus #EuropeanYearOfYouth #EYY2022