In response to the unfolding humanitarian crisis in the Balkans, since 2015, CARE International Balkans is providing urgent humanitarian assistance to refugees and migrants as they are passing through Serbia on their way to EU countries. CARE in cooperation with partner organizations ensures food security, provides shelter and non-food items, offers water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), and protection.
During the emergency assistance, CARE and its local partners recognized the need to protect young male migrants – mostly unaccompanied minors – as the major group in need. Building on CARE’s decade-long experience of engaging boys and young men in the Balkans in programs on violence prevention, healthy lifestyles, and gender equality initiatives, we decided to use the existing Program Y together with the Kids Welcome Initiative (KIWI), implemented by CARE Germany, and create a tailor-made program for working with young male migrants, adaptable to different settings and young men`s groups.
This participative qualitative study was conducted as a part of “Welcome Initiative for Migrant Youth” project that aims to provide adequate protection for young migrants – unaccompanied minors settled in the reception centers in the South of Serbia, through educational workshops and awareness raising in issues like healthy lifestyles, non-violent solution to conflicts, gender equality, positive masculinity, counter trafficking, and others.