The Project “Expression in Dialogue” 
started in September 2018 and will last till March 2020.
It is a strategic partnership which intends to directly address the refugee cause from diverse realities in Europe creating innovative youth work tools for:
- supporting the inclusion of young migrants and refugees strengthening the sense of belonging to the hosting communities.
- Mainstreaming intercultural dialogue and de-construct prejudices through the implementation of Living Library actions.
Aims and Objectives
The project "Expressions in Dialogue: Innovative youth work practices on refugee inclusion through Living Libraries" appears as a need from youth organisations directly addressing the refugee cause from diverse realities in Europe to create innovative youth work tools for both:
1.- supporting the inclusion of young migrants and refugees strengthening the sense of belonging to the hosting communities;
2.- mainstreaming intercultural dialogue and de-construct prejudices through the implementation of Living Library actions in order to encourage interaction bringing communities together.
The project proposes to work for, with and by youth migrants and refugees together with youth workers from diverse communities around Europe to develop innovative practices on refugee inclusion through human rights education and Living Library methodologies.
Target Group
The main target of the project is to work for, with and by youth migrants and refugees together with youth workers and practitioners from the partner organisations.
Each organisation appointed a project coordinator responsible of the communication and the management of the local groups. Coordinators attended the three Transnational Meetings and facilitated the work of the local groups.
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The Project proposes to work for, with and by young migrants and refugees together with youth workers from diverse communities around Europe to develop innovative practices on refugee inclusion through Human Rights Education and Living Library methodologies.
After the Capacity-Building training course (in February 9-16 in Tallinn), all the partners organisations were busy with the creation of the active group committing to organise their local actions – Living Library – and were doing necessary preparations for implementing Living Library event locally. This preparation includes, of course, logistical and technical preparataion, but more importantly, finding and preparing the Human Books (“the catalogue”) and dissemination of the invitations and calls for the Living Library event.
All the partners advanced a lot in this process and as a result 5 Living Library local events (so far) are planned to take place in May and June 2019:
2-3 of May – by the WeOrganisation (VYRE) in Rotterdam, the Netherlands;
11th of May – by the House of Europe in Rhodes, Greece;
25th of May – by AHEAD (and local partners), in Barcelona, Catalonia;
8th of June – by Young Effect in Magenta (and local partners), Italy;
20th of June – by Trajectory@ (and local partners) in Tallinn.
Besides, very soon, the Expressions in Dialogue coordinators’s meeting will take place in Magenta (Italy) on dates 7-10 of June. This time each national coordinator will come together with one representative of the local Living Library team. The agenda includes as well sharing the results of local Living Libraries, that have taken place already and the progress of preparations of the ones, that are still to come.
International Partners
Besides AHEAD, this Strategic Partnership project is implemented by the organisations of the consortium:
Meeting in Catalonia
From the 29th of September to the 5th October, the Innovation Development meeting took place in Coma-Ruga (Catalonia). The meeting in was hosted by one of the partner-organizations – the Association of Educators in Human Rights, AHEAD.
The meeting in Catalonia was though for people who were actively involved in the preparation, implementation and evaluation of the local Living Library event(s) in each partner-country. Each team of 4 people was composed by a balanced group of youth migrants and refugees as well as representatives of the hosting communities. They were as well representing diverse actors of the Living-Library-teams: Human Books, Facilitators, Librarians, Readers and Coordinators to join the meeting.
This meeting was part of the ongoing KA2 Strategic Partnership project “Expressions in Dialogue”, which explores Living Library methodology as tool for inclusion of refugees and migrant in Europe. During spring and summer of 2019, a number of local Living Libraries took place organized by the partner-organizations.
They were:
On the 2nd and 3rd of May – WeOrganisation (in Hague, the Netherlands);
On the 11th of May – House of Europe (Rhodes, Greece);
On the 1st and the 15th of June – AHEAD (Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain);
On the 8th of June – Young Effect Association (In Magenta, Italy);
On the 20th of June – by Trajectory@ (Tallinn, Estonia);
On the 12th of July – House of Europe (In Athens, Greece).
After the implementation of the Living Libraries, the representatives of all the teams got together to share their experience, challenges, solutions and talk about the process of preparation, implementation and evaluation of their local events, from perspective of the inclusion of refugees and migrants, who were involved as participants in all the roles within this process.
Team Barcelona
Materials and Outcomes
The materials about the Project as well as conclusions and recommendations will be shared with the wider public on the web page, which is under construction now. Soon we will happily share it with you.