On this International Youth Day we want to emphasize the importance of young people also having the opportunity to build their life and work projects.
Nearly 22% of people experiencing homelessness in Barcelona are between 18 and 30 years old, a figure very similar to that recorded in Spain where it represents 21%. That is why this August 12, International Youth Day, we want to put on the table the importance of being able to provide a response to young people experiencing homelessness so that they can develop their life projects.
At Suara Cooperativa, for example, we manage different Sostre 360º services, where we accompany young people in the search for a solution that will lead them out of homelessness. The first step is to find a home that, beyond being a place of shelter, also allows you to process the registration to start the procedures to regularize your situation.
“The most important thing is to cover your basic needs, which is housing. Once these needs are covered, you need to start working on other things such as documentation, having a residence permit, working and training,” explains Samia Ouadih, social educator of this service, educator of Sostre 360º Maresme, where they accompany young people between 18 and 25 years old. They are also offered socio-educational support so that they can develop a life and work project.
Ouadih acknowledges that the situation of these young people is not easy. “With their migratory grief, they find themselves very alone because there is no network and there are many stigmas that do not help them when it comes to registering or looking for a house,” defends Ouadih, who adds that this means that the support is in all areas: from legal, socio-educational, training, labor and psychological.
In the case of Maresme, the Sostre 360º service began in 2021 in the towns of Canet and Arenys de Mar and two years later it was extended to the rest of the municipalities in the region with less than 20,000 inhabitants to respond to young people in a situation of homelessness or at risk of being there. It currently has around thirty places and since it was born it has served around 120 people.
Individualized model centered on the person
“With the young person in care, we write a work plan, where we set goals that we work on together and during the stay in the project we make sure that the agreed goals are met”, highlights Júlia Hernàndez, director of the Sostre 360º service, in an interview with Ràdio Ona Maresme, who adds: “We like to work individually with the person and with the person-centered model where they are the protagonist of their process”.
Although there is no deadline for them to leave the project, Hernández reports that the average time each person usually stays there is around a year and a half or two. “The two fundamental pillars are regularization and the search for housing that the day they are no longer in the project they must be able to support themselves alone and autonomously”, expresses Hernández.
One of the people who has been helped by this service is Aymene, a young man who arrived from a town in northern Algeria in Catalonia when he was still a minor and, therefore, was in a center until he turned 18 and, later, entered the Sostre 360º project.
Without a doubt, he recognizes that the most complicated thing is to be able to have the papers in order. Currently, he has residence by rooting, since he is studying a middle degree to help people in situations of dependency and is now processing the residence permit both to study and work. Currently, Aymene also has a roof over his head and emphasizes its importance. “It allows you to study, do your things well and it is essential to continue with life in a calm way”, says Aymene.
In the immediate future he wants to study a higher degree in social integration to be able to work in services like Sostre 360º, which have given him a response to his situation. “I really like living in Catalonia, and especially in Maresme, because it is a place in the Mediterranean like the one I was born in and I feel at home here”, defends Aymene.
This August 12, International Youth Day, from Suara Cooperativa we claim that no young person can be isolated from this society. Measures and resources are needed to accompany them, especially those who are in a situation of vulnerability, so that they can transform their realities to build a life and work project.
