ID Forum 2024

RAY attended the ID Forum 2024 in Oostende!

RAY participated in the fourth edition of the Inclusion and diversity Forum organised by SALTO inclusion and diversity in Oostende. At the event, our colleagues from the transnational research team shared key insights from RAY MON, RAY SOC and other RAY projects in relation to the achievements and challenges of Erasmus + Youth and the European Solidarity Corps in the area of inclusion and diversity.

The Inclusion & Diversity Forum is an international conference organised by SALTO Inclusion & Diversity focused on creating greater visibility for inclusion & diversity and building bridges between inclusion-related practice, policy and research within the European youth programmes.

The presentation underlined the achievements of both programs when it comes to fostering key skills and values for inclusion such as intercultural learning, empathy and solidarity and to creating inclusive projects. The presentation also underlined how barriers to inclusion that came up during the projects often became an opportunity to learn to tackle them successfully. The challenges highlighted during the presentation were related to creating more diversity within both programmes by making it easier for young people with fewer opportunities and the organisations, networks and institutions that work with them to access projects in the first place. Bureaucratic and complicated application processes were identified as meaningful barriers to this end. Lastly, youth participation projects were explored as a meaningful, but underexploited tool to foster policy dialogue within the programs. Interested readers can find the slides of this presentation here.

The input of the RAY Network at the forum fostered shared insights and fuelled active participation and collaboration among participants to contribute valuable suggestions for the future of the diversity and inclusion in the programmes. The specific outcomes and news from the forum can be found on their website.

The RAY Network would like to thank SALTO inclusion for the opportunity to join the conversation on inclusion and diversity in the European youth programmes. We would also like to congratulate the ID Forum’s team on putting together a welcoming and inspiring event that brought together the voices of key stakeholders.