The YOUMIG partnership gathered in Vienna at mid-term to discuss and shape activities for the next 14 months. The improvement of statistical measuring of youth migration, policy testing and advising and documenting cases and good practices were some of the issues partners addressed in small thematic groups.

Every partnership knows that reaching the mid-term of a project lifetime means the countdown begins before the end when all results and achievements will be weighed and activities wrapped up. The YOUMIG partnership gathered in Vienna to meet after an open conference day to discuss the key tasks. “Goals must be realistic, we must concentrate on what we can get out of the project,” said Béla Soltész, deputy project manager, to partners. “Where do we see ourselves in 14 months?,” he asked, referring to the project end in June 2019.

Starting the first day on 9 May, 2018, YOUMIG partners were introduced to the practices of the very city where they were meeting – Vienna. The municipality’s Department for Integration and Diversity (MA-17) has been running several programmes geared towards migrants for years. One of these - Start Wien – was introduced in more detail by Ursula Eltayeb. In this welcome scheme for migrants various written information is offered as well as consultations and short skills trainings to help newcomers find their way around Vienna easier. The most important issues for immigrants to Vienna are labour market and labour law issues as well as the habits of the natives or practices in “living together”, Eltayeb said.

Next, each activity leader outlined the most important question in their block, that is: what can and cannot be completed in the frame of the project. Multi-faceted projects such as YOUMIG often need to adapt fast to changes in the course of the project’s duration and shape their ambitions to expectations of the best possible outcome. The partnership now outlined realistic goals in indicator development (statistical measuring of youth migration), pilot actions and one-stop-shop services (actions tailored for each municipality based on their identified needs and administrative support for arrivals/leavers at a local level). In her introduction to the pilot+OSS work package activities, Amna Potocnik of the Maribor Development Agency highlighted the importance of building stakeholder networks. This means that local influencers and people working in positions that are somehow affected by youth migration should be engaged in YOUMIG goals every step of the way. Jelena Predojevic-Despic of the Institute Of Social Sciences in Belgrade, reminded the partnership of the planned final outcomes of the project: recommendations and strategy for decision-makers and actionable ideas for municipalities. In the afternoon sessions the focus was for each group to make final decisions about timelines and task lists for what lied ahead and financial managers also had a chance to meet separately to discuss concrete budget and reporting obligations.

To complement the presentations of municipal partners about Pilot Actions to be tested in their locality in the YOUMIG framework, pilot posteres were affixed on the walls of the conference room for everyone to discover what others were doing in this activity. The pilot actions were designed to answer to some of the migration-related characteristics of the municipality that were identified in the local analysis completed earlier in YOUMIG.

On the second and final day of the partner meeting, participants sat together to listen to issues and plans in financial planning and reporting tasks, project communication, social media management and overall management. The project’s quality assurance manager, Attila Melegh, presented his views on what he saw as the best outcomes of YOUMIG so far, and what he believed deserved more emphasis in the upcoming period. Project partners exchanged views in a supporting atmosphere and took home new inspiration to continue the work in the next half year. There was also some relaxed moments when the partners gathered for their latest group photo on the roof of the building.

Please visit our facebook page for a photo album about our days in Vienna!