A Bridge to Inclusion: Empowering Marginalised Target Groups Through Solidarity Projects

This paper draws on the concrete experience of working with a hard-to-reach target group facing several key markers of disadvantage, namely young migrants from Mali. The work featured is in the framework of the Berlin-based Solidarity Project “Café Bamako”.

Solidarity Projects provide promising opportunities within the framework of the European Solidarity Corps for empowering young people with fewer opportunities. It empowers them to participate more fully in economic, social and cultural life. It presents potential pathways to social inclusion through fostering engagement with issues that are relevant to disadvantaged young people’s lived experience. The paper seeks to go beyond an understanding of solidarity that mainly applies to the support and assistance provided by civil society towards disadvantaged groups. It shifts the focus to the ways in which the young migrants can
contribute to and enrich their own new communities – and in doing so, empower themselves – through their own civic engagement.