2016-3-DE04-KA105-014651

Project Duration 01/03/2017-31/07/2017

Key Action KA1 – Learning Mobility of Individuals

Action Type KA105 – Youth mobility

Beneficiary Organisation Sächsische Jugendstiftung

A combination of economic, political, social and climate factors has led many people to leave their countries of origin and try to find a safer and more prosperous place for them and their families to live. Historically, the economic prosperity and political stability of the EU compared to other countries outside of it, is believed to have exerted a considerable pull effect on immigrants and refugees. The idea of EU was born out of a necessity to create a peaceful space among its member states, with respect to human rights and a common future away from the past conflicts. EU, based on democratic principles and values, has managed in the past 70 years, after the end of the World War II, to remain united and powerful.

Nowadays EU is facing, beside the economic crisis, a new challenge, the refugee crisis. It is a fact, that the situation in non-European countries such as Syria and Afghanistan has put tremendous pressure on many European countries as a high number of refugees gets into Europe. This time around, this wasn’t obvious only in border-countries like Greece and Italy but also in countries in the central and north Europe. In 2014, 280.000 refugees came to Europe for a better life and in 2015 this number was three times bigger. In 2016, there are still refugees arriving daily on Greek islands and Europe’s mainland, hoping for a better life in a peaceful environment. The big number of people crossed Europe’s borders couldn’t leave the lives of European citizens and young people unaffected.
MEPP+: Mapping European Past and Present is an 8-day and 3-country (Germany, Greece and Macedonia) youth exchange aiming to follow European history of immigration from the period of World War II until today, by creating a roadmap with the immigration routes for each participant country and outlining the cultural, social, economical, political and environmental effects for each country.
In this framework, young people will try to define their common European background, to isolate singularity and specific national contest and to compare the present situation in Europe for each country or region in order to discover the path that connect their reality with the past and help them to understand the present. By creating the roadmap, they will be able to compare the actual situation of their country in past and present and try to understand refugee crisis and immigration in Europe.