Empowerment Brabantse Allochtonen

The project

Empowerment Brabantse Allochtonen was an initiative managed by Stichting Palet that empowered young migrants in the Dutch province of Noord-Brabant toward employment. This initiative aimed to counteract discrimination by empowering youth through promotion teams and youth mentor, and by developing guides and workshops on the topics of migrant youth empowerment and intercultural sensitivity. 
The initiative lasted two years (2005 – 2006) and actively focused on gender and age sensitivity by enforcing a gender quota (target group 50% male 50% female) and a maximum age of 25.  

Negative perceptions from employers and society toward young migrants in general can exclude young migrants from educational qualification and employment opportunities. This, in turn, can lead to higher unemployment rates and exclusion among this demographic group. Such exclusion can also lead to a negative self-image and low self esteem at individual level.  

Thus, the initiative identified the following needs: 

• to improve self-image and self esteem of young migrants; 
• to improve the perception of young migrants amongst employers, education facilities and youth workers; 
• to improve young migrants’ problem-solving and networking skills.

As a solution, the initiative proposed the formation of “promotion teams”, a group of young people as ambassadors who undertake joint activities to improve their own position, and that of their peers, on the job market or in education. The activities varied from making contact with employers in order to obtain language internships and apprenticeships, to organizing debates or offering practical support to job seekers. The promotion teams were supervised by Stichting Palet.  

The initiative proposed, furthermore, the development of empowerment workshops for youth and intercultural sensitivity workshops for employers and educational institutions. The findings of the initiative, moreover, were captured in guidelines which were distribute to other actors in the field. 

The impact of the good practice

The evaluation of the initiative is especially positive about the use of promotion teams to positively change perceptions of the target group amongst local employers. A total of 15 promotion teams were set up in the province, of which 14 were still active one year after the initiative formally ended. The efforts of these promotion teams have resulted in 250 additional internships, the permanent appointment of a migrant youth representative within the local Employers’ Organisation and reportedly increased levels of self-esteem of migrant youth.

The large scale (provincial) in combination with the well-established link with regional administrative networks made the initiative particularly impactful. Information on bottlenecks and identified solutions were communicated easily within the network, which facilitated steep learning curves among the implementing actors. As a result of its success, the initiative enjoyed greater name recognition in the general public and commitment from interested employers was obtained more quickly from the private sector.