Written by: Victoria Salazar & Zineb Haddoudi.
Session contributions and insights by: Yagmur Erdogmus & Irene Vettiyadan.
(Note: This blog post is a co-created reflection from VOICIFY’s second “Rethinking EU Youth Integration & Political Power” Co-Creation Lab. The insights, quotes, and structural critiques presented below were generated collectively by the participants during our live session.)
In our second live session, we skipped the surface-level celebrations of diversity. We went straight for the core tension of youth political participation: Are we genuinely engaged, or are we just being talked about?
Looking closely at the realities of tokenism and the hidden traps in EU policy, we dismantled the illusion of inclusion and started mapping out what real, breathing political power actually looks like.
The Trap of Symbolic Inclusion
Institutions love the aesthetic of diversity, but the reality for youth with a migration background is often alienating.
Zineb highlighted how cultural background is frequently weaponized as a proxy for skills. “In NGO contexts, we are valued for language and intercultural communication, not work experience or professional skills,” she shared. It is the frustration of “being placed in a box that is framed as a ‘plus’ but reduces you to where you come from. It usually leaves you there without real space for growth professionally beyond your existing background, nor are opportunities for growth presented to you in these contexts.”
Irene echoed this, pointing out that humanitarian organizations often build their public image and their funding pitches around migrant youth, pushing them into unpaid or precarious roles. This creates a painful internal conflict. “Am I really contributing, or am I being used?” Irene asked, capturing the heavy tension between genuinely believing in a cause and feeling manipulated by the system built around it.
The Gap Between Policy and Reality
When we critically read the EU Action Plan for Integration and Inclusion, the asymmetric power dynamics are baked right into the vocabulary:
- “Host communities” implies that the country inherently belongs to some and not others, framing migrants as unstable guests.
- “Integration” implies a one-way obligation to fit into a dominant culture, rather than a mutual openness.
In practice, this top-down approach falls flat. Zineb pointed out that project-based funding models actively prevent communities from building real autonomy. “When governments cut funding, they do not consider the consequences for communities,” she noted, emphasizing that financial sustainability is nearly impossible when resources are distributed by political luck. Financial sustainability is a recurring theme in many EU policies and funding programmes; however, responsibility for achieving it is very often offloaded onto communities themselves. This reinforces existing power imbalances and moves us further away from what genuine inclusion should look like.
Real inclusion, as Irene pointed out, is almost always initiated organically by civil society. She shared the example of occupied buildings in Rome that became vital community spaces for migrants before the municipality cleared them out. “The people organized themselves; the institutions did not,” she explained.
What Real Power Looks Like
We are not just here to critique; we are here to redefine. True participation requires shared decision-making power and the complete dismantling of hierarchical control.
Irene shared concrete examples of what this looks like in practice, pointing to organizations like COVSA (which recognizes all forms of lived and academic knowledge as equal) and the youth workshops by Dalla Parte Giusta della Storia. In the latter, participants set their own boundaries and decided who held the mic.
“It was my first experience of a space where I was not there because of my migration background and did not feel obligated to represent anyone,” Irene reflected.
As we closed the session, the duality of our work was clear. Zineb left with “apprehension, looking at the EU and the politics,” while Irene left with “a bit of lightness because there is a space to share… the fact that we showed up and talked about it gives a sparkle.”
What specific term in institutional policies do you believe communities need to rewrite?
*Disclaimer: The opinions and views expressed in this blog post are entirely those of the co-authors and contributing participants. They do not necessarily reflect the official policies, positions, or views of VOICIFY or its affiliated member organizations. VOICIFY provides the Co-Creation Labs as a platform for youth with lived migration experiences to safely share their insights and shape narratives.
