According to the latest statistics provided by UNHCR - United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, there are currently 10 million stateless people who have been denied a nationality and access to basic rights such as education, healthcare, employment and freedom of movement, plus an unprecedented number of 68.5 million people around the world who have been forced from home. Among them there are nearly 25.4 million refugees, over half of whom are under the age of 18. Europe is witnessing the arrival of an increasing numbers of young, single asylum seekers - especially unaccompanied minors that arrive to a new country alone, without a parent or guardian. It is the highest levels of displacement on record and, besides that, this is a different flow of migration than the ones which Europe was accustomed to, not only in terms of numbers but mostly in terms of the human impact that characterizes it. In fact, at the same time, the incidence in Europe and its neighbouring countries of hate crimes and attacks on migrants and refugees, combined with hate speech, propaganda, violent xenophobia, as well as the rise in religious and political extremism, is making the youth radicalisation and the associated use of violence a growing issue of concern.
In this current time, which has been defined by Colette Soler as "the era of traumatisms", new approaches are needed that can meet the epochal dimension of the migratory phenomenon that is affecting the whole Europe. It is within this frame that the idea of the project ExULI was born. The project is a cross-sectoral partnership, committed to a 24-months project, which involves 5 organizations from 4 of the major countries involved in the reception of migration flows: Italy, France, Spain and Greece. One of its main goals is to encourage synergies between actors (professionals and volunteers) from different areas of intervention, in order to foster innovation and look for synergies which can be appropriate for the new challenges on inclusion and integration that the European society is being called to face.
The project EXULI promotes an integrated approach combining the non-formal educational practices typical of youth work together with the contribution of the Lacanian psychoanalytical practice. Both approaches support resilience, i.e. the capacity to effectively face the challenges of the exile condition of young migrants, in order to give new impetus to their existence and even to reach important goals. The project aims to explore this approach, test it and share it with all those practictioners who are engaged and active in the field of work with newly arrived (asylum seekers, refugees) and second generation migrants, using it as a tool for the the prevention of radicalism.