Publications
What Young People Can(not) Say Out Loud
The NGO IPčko, in collaboration with CVEK, has published “What Young People Can(not) Say Out Loud.” This publication is the culmination of the year-long Unheard project, which featured an anonymous online message board—VYFRUSTROVAČ (the “Frustration Outlet”)—where young people have been sharing their messages and questions for over a year.
The report analyzes key insights into the core struggles, unmet needs, and underlying sources of frustration shaping the lives of youth today. Offering a vital window into the realities facing modern youth, it serves as a valuable resource for developing actionable recommendations on the prevention of extremism and radicalization, which are set out in the publication.
Challenges and Opportunities: Integrating Youth with Migrant and Refugee Backgrounds in Norway and Slovakia
Integrating young migrants arriving in a country is essential to building an inclusive and thriving society. These young people bring a rich tapestry of cultural and social experiences that enrich local communities.
Without targeted support and effective integration measures, however, they often face significant hurdles—including language barriers, discrimination, and restricted access to quality education and the labour market. Investing in their inclusion not only improves their immediate life prospects, but also reinforces social cohesion, drives economic vitality, and creates more cohesive communities where everyone has the opportunity to unlock their full potential.
Slovakia has seen a steady increase in the number of young migrants. This trend was significantly accelerated following the outbreak of the full-scale war in Ukraine, which brought thousands of displaced youth to the country.
This policy brief is the outcome of a study visit to Oslo, Norway, conducted by CVEK experts in February 2025. The findings and recommendations presented here draw on a series of expert webinars with our partner organisation YYouth, a thorough review of policy documents and research, and valuable insights gathered from meetings with specialists across 10 institutions and organisations working in youth migrant inclusion in Oslo.
This publication was produced under the project “Study Visit to Norway on the Integration of Young Migrants and Refugees,” supported by the Fund for Bilateral Relations co-financed by the EEA and Norway Grants 2014–2021. The Programme Operator is the Ministry of Investments, Regional Development and Informatization of the Slovak Republic.
Working together for a green, competitive, and inclusive Europe | www.eeagrants.sk
CITY FOR YOUNG PEOPLE – Recommendations for the development of strategies targeting young people from diverse groups
The population of young people in Slovakia’s towns and cities is becoming increasingly diverse. The Centre for the Research of Ethnicity and Culture has long been addressing the situation, needs and participation of various minority and vulnerable groups, including young people, in its research and advocacy activities. One of the results of our efforts is this document, which aims to show that young people are an important part of local communities. It is therefore essential to pay attention to their needs and specificities when designing public policies also at local level.
In this document, we are trying to highlight the diversity of the young people’s population, which influences how they perceive the world, what their needs are, but also the various barriers they face in their lives. At the same time, the needs of different minority and vulnerable groups often do not receive as much attention as they should in public policies.
This document is intended for policy makers, but also for all actors who implement activities, projects or support measures for young people, and specifically for young people from minority and vulnerable groups. It highlights important aspects that should not be forgotten when designing public policies aimed at youth.
The recommendations contained in the document are the result of more than a year of cooperation with young people from different backgrounds and minority groups, who have provided us with their valuable perspectives and experiences. They have been an inspiration for us, which we want to pass on to other important stakeholders.
This document is an output of the project “A Part for All – Promoting the participation of young people from diverse groups”, supported by the European Union under the Erasmus+ 2021-2027 – KA210-Youth Programme.
How to do it? Involving young people from diverse groups
If we want young people, including those from minorities and vulnerable groups, to feel comfortable in Slovakia and see it as “their country”, they need a voice in society. It is not enough to create policies and activities for young people, it is important to do it together with them.
However, this requires that we respect their views, needs and reflect them in all activities. This is how we have approached this in the project “A Part for All – Promoting the participation of young people from diverse groups”. In it, in addition to research on young people from minority backgrounds, we actively worked with a group of young people to support their civic engagement.
This methodology is an effort to help promote youth participation by highlighting important steps and areas that should not be forgotten when implementing participatory processes. It is the result of a collaboration between CVEK experts and young people from different minority groups. It brings their voice and shows how young people can be involved. It is addressed to municipalities, but also to all organisations, people or informal initiatives working with young people.
The document is an output of the project “A Part for All – Promoting the participation of young people from diverse groups”, supported by the European Union under the Erasmus+ 2021-2027 – KA210-Youth.
A roadmap to integrating refugees and foreigners in cities
This handbook is especially intended for local governments and other actors working at the local level on
inclusion of foreigners, but especially of people on the run (refugees) in local communities.
The issue of migration will become more and more topical in the future and the following topics can significantly help municipalities to manage this situation not only now but also in the future. By setting quality policies, measures and support services for refugees/foreigners, it is possible to achieve quality integration, prevent social tensions and use not only the challenges but also the opportunities that migration brings for the overall development of local communities.
Here you will find a variety of information regarding the situation of refugees/foreigners as well as their specificities and needs. At the same time, we present a number of steps, suggestions and measures to be implemented in all areas of integration.
The Roadmap to the Integration of Refugees and Foreigners in Cities is published with the support of the U.S. Embassy Bratislava.
Mechanism for preventing radicalisation of young people at local level
The Radicalisation Prevention Mechanism is the result of the work of experts from the Centre for Research on Ethnicity and Culture, other experts from various institutions working on the prevention of radicalisation of young people at the local level, and active young people who have been involved in its development.
The reason why we decided to create this document is our desire to help local actors to deal with the increasing social tensions that affect young people in particular. We believe that the best way to deal with radicalisation is to implement the most effective prevention and support activities for young people that respond to their needs and prevent them from resorting to hate speech and extremism. At the same time, if the first signs start to emerge that young people are becoming radicalised, it is necessary to have effective mechanisms in place to respond to this situation.
The mechanism should serve all actors at local level, i.e. municipalities, schools, police, NGOs, youth clubs, counselling facilities and others who see the urgency of the problem of radicalisation of young people, perceive the need to address it, but have not yet found a way to act.
The mechanism for prevention of radicalisation of young people at the local level was created as part of the project ‘Mechanism for prevention of radicalisation and extremism-police and youth together’, which is supported by the ACF-Slovakia programme, funded by the EEA Financial Mechanism 2014-2021. The administrator of the programme is the Ekopolis Foundation in partnership with the Open Society Foundation Bratislava and the Karpatská nadácia (Carpathian Foundation).
Pandemic as a human rights lesson
This book is another publication of the Centre for Research on Ethnicity and Culture, which deals with vulnerable groups and their place in Slovak society. The book highlights how the pandemic has affected children and young people, the elderly, Roma, foreigners and people with disabilities. In individual chapters, we describe how various measures during the pandemic affected the lives of these groups and note in several places that the position of various vulnerable groups was exacerbated during this period. Moreover, as we highlight, the anti-pandemic measures were problematic in terms of respect for human rights. However, we also make a number of recommendations that could and should lead to better public policies in the future.
Cohesion and trust in society is largely dependent on how we can ensure that the needs of all citizens are met. It is important that every person can feel that Slovakia is his or her country too, even in times of crisis and uncertainty. For this, we need functional institutions that are there for us whenever we need them.
Implemented with the financial support of the Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Republic within the framework of the subsidy programme for the promotion, support and protection of human rights and freedoms and for the prevention of all forms of discrimination, racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and other manifestations of intolerance.
Young people from minorities – identity, trust, exclusion, participation
This analysis is the first output of the project entitled “A part for all – promoting participation of young people from diverse groups”, which we have been implementing at CVEK since the beginning of May 2022.
At CVEK, we have been working on the topic of participation of different minority groups for several years now, pointing out that the involvement of diverse groups in policy-making, but also more generally in the life of society, is key to creating a cohesive society. Young people from different minority groups or groups that can be perceived as vulnerable are at an even greater disadvantage than young people in general in terms of participation and having their voices heard.
Meanwhile, young people have faced many challenges in recent years that previous generations did not face. The COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis, inflation, the growing influence of social networks and disinformation, significant social changes – all these are issues that have a much more significant impact on young people, and especially on young people from minority backgrounds.
In our current project, we focus on young Roma men and women, young people from the LGBTI+ community, young foreigners, young people with disabilities and young people from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds in Bratislava and its surroundings. Our aim is to empower young people from minority backgrounds and help them develop their skills so that they can actively participate in their neighbourhoods and communities.
In the first phase of the project, we conducted research to understand the situation and perceptions of young people from minority backgrounds and to give them a voice. The findings from the research are included in this analysis. In the interviews we explored four themes: perceptions and experiences of their own minority identity, trust in institutions and perceptions of support from institutions, experiences of social exclusion and experiences of participation.
The project “A part for all – promoting participation of diverse young people” is supported by the Erasmus+ programme, Key Action 2: Collaborative Partnerships.
Human rights in Slovak and Norwegian schools. How do children see it?
This publication is the result of research that focused on how human rights are reflected in the school environment in Slovakia and Norway. Based on a comparative approach, we present both an analysis of educational documents and policies in both countries in relation to human rights education, as well as the perspectives, opinions and recommendations of the children themselves. The research shows that for children in both Slovakia and Norway, human rights is a very important topic that they believe definitely belongs in schools. Children need and want to talk about these topics, but they stress that they do not just want to learn lessons, but rather to discuss the topics and use various interactive and playful forms of learning. In Norway, children encounter this approach systematically, in Slovakia only occasionally, if they are lucky enough to have empathetic and well-prepared teachers.
Preparation of the comparative study “Human Rights in Slovak and Norwegian Schools – How do children see it?” was supported by the Bilateral Fund of the ACF-Slovakia programme, which is funded by the EEA Financial Mechanism 2014-2021. The programme is managed by the Ekopolis Foundation in partnership with the Open Society Foundation Bratislava and the Carpathian Foundation.
Preventing radicalisation and extremism from an institutional perspective
Within the framework of the project Mechanism for the prevention of radicalisation – young people and the police together, in addition to quantitative research and focus groups with young people, we also conducted individual semi-structured interviews with representatives of institutions that deal with the topic of radicalisation prevention.
Our aim is to know the undercurrents and factors that influence extremism and radicalisation among young people. Therefore, our interviews with representatives of various institutions focused primarily on their own perceptions of the phenomenon, the factors that influence it and the social situation that may influence young people to take the extremist side. We also focused on the topic of trust in institutions and young people’s voice, which have been shown in various research to be important factors related to this topic.
In our research, we also looked at the challenges we face as a country on the topic of radicalization and how the state approaches it through its policies and legislative settings, or by supporting different organizations in implementing prevention programs.
An important part of the research was also to learn about the specific activities of individual organisations and institutions in order to implement the project effectively in its next phases and to build on what is already working in practice.
This publication is therefore a basic analysis of the institutional perspective on the topic of preventing radicalisation of young people.
This publication is published as part of the project ‘Mechanism for the Prevention of Radicalisation and Extremism-Police and Youth Together’, which is supported by the ACF-Slovakia programme, funded by the EEA Financial Mechanism 2014-2021. The programme is managed by the Ekopolis Foundation in partnership with the Open Society Foundation Bratislava and the Carpathian Foundation.
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