Shelter International e.V.

Shelter international e.V., founded in 2017, is a non-governmental, non-profit organization in Bremen, Germany. Shelter international e.V. promotes dialogue and cooperation in the fields of education and training, youth, active citizenship, social inclusion, environment, health, peacebuilding, nonviolence action, personal development, human rights, sustainable development, social justice, employment, entrepreneurship and social issues. Shelter international e.V. also promotes intercultural exchange with the ambition of recognizing and respecting cultural diversity, cultivating European values in all its forms and defending human rights. Shelter international e.V. carries out social inclusion and civic activities that support social diversity and contributes to solutions of social issues which are common concerns of our European societies. We strongly think that involving young people in civic activities and cross-border exchange programs can be a powerful and effective tool for broadening horizons, breaking down stereotypes and prejudices and reducing social exclusion and disengagement. Thus, shelter international e.V. promote participation opportunities for young people, especially those with fewer opportunities due to formal or informal access barriers. We support young people as we are aware of the need to support both young people affected and endangered by risks of social exclusion and young people taking initiatives to make it easier for everyone to access civic activities and to make our societies more peaceful and pleasant places for everyone to live in. Thus, shelter international e.V. helps to increase the capacity of young people by including them effectively in the direct implementation of the core activities that develop their skills and empower them to become more independent and sustainable people in social life and in community building and development. We engage young people in a constructive way and enable them to take the initiative to form and develop ideas that meet people's needs and help to reduce the issues and challenges that societies are most confronted with. We also provide young people and adults with the skills to develop social, intercultural and critical thinking competences for a more inclusive education, training and youth field. We work with different institutions to address different social and global issues and to encourage young people to take an active role in societies. Shelter international e.V. is involved in promoting opportunities to create better possibilities for the empowerment of newcomers. We are working to raise awareness for the needs of newcomers and offer them help and advice in legal cases. We are actively promoting education and workshops to reduce the social exclusion of newcomers, immigrants and disadvantaged youth. Shelter international e.V. plays an active role in shaping an ecologically sustainable, socially just environment, while remaining mindful of the global dimension. As environmentally mindful people, we strongly believe that raising awareness of environmental issues is of extreme importance. We understand the fragility of our environment and the importance of its protection and take action to promote sustainable development and a more eco-friendly way of living and taking good care of nature. These actions consist of the 3R of sustainability: reduce, reuse, recycle; and more sustainable ways of living. Furthermore, we are also deeply concerned about the pollution in nature and seas, most notably plastic pollution. For that, we believe the governmental institutions, NGOs, and society should take solid steps towards protecting the environment and oceans. In 2019, we gained 3 new active members in order to increase our capacity to organise more local projects to increase our impact on the local level. We have also focused on strategic partnership projects with local activities and events to be able to reach more young people. We are already working with reliable partners on one KA2 project and one Capacity Building in the field of youth project with a focus on the youth work with minorities. We have also developed KA2 projects together with our partners to empower young adults with migrant backgrounds in their successful integration into society through non-formal education and best practices of social entrepreneurship. We also developed a training module "Working with Young Migrants". Our strategic partnership project “Developing entrepreneurship and self-employment skills of immigrants” has started with the leadership of shelter international e.V. All members of our organization have ample experience in the Erasmus+ Programme and they have participated in KA1 and KA2 projects both as participants and trainers/facilitators.