Conclusion of the ‘Can Do Refugees’ Project

AUC is happy to announce the conclusion of the Erasmus+ funded “Can Do Refugees” program that started in 2018.

The project aimed at supporting and empowering professionals and volunteers working with refugees, asylum seekers, and more generally, people with a migrational background through practical tools and innovative methods to enhance professional development in terms of knowledge, skills and competencies.

The project focus on key thematic areas of intercultural communication to positively deal with different belief systems, cultural codes, and values, anti-discrimination exercises to counter stereotypes and create more inclusive narratives, trauma pedagogy supporting refugees who have suffered violence and abuse, and women rights, citizenship and democracy education towards to enable professionals to provide rights-based support.

“Can Do” addressed these pillars by bringing people together in a process of experiential learning: to get them involved, interested, proactive and, finally, empowered. Refugees themselves played an integral part in such a process in light of the inability of the once used “one-size-fits-all” approach to ensure effective integration. Without the involvement of refugees and without an understanding of their specific needs, some interventions may cause misguided dependency, marginalization and, ultimately, isolation.

Integration is, in this sense, a dynamic and gradual two-way process that -in order to be effective, meaningful and enriching- requires all parties to be involved. Refugees Experiences and project activities have been documented in a creative video that you can watch here.

Project Training Manual including the description of the approach and innovative exercises can be downloaded here.

The project has been implemented in partnership with Eurocircle, Marseille, France; Projestioón, Madrid, Spain; The University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece under the leadership of Verband für interkulturelle Arbeit (VIA) Bayern, Munich, German with support from the European Commission / Erasmus+, under the auspices of the German National Agency.