Disadvantaged young people from migrant/ minority communities those that are not media literate face multiple difficulties to function fully in a digital society and this affects their full and responsible online participation. Furthermore, their voice is often underrepresented in the media and female migrants are even less visible. The main response to these challenges is to empower young people from migrant and ethnic minority groups (in cooperation with local youth from low socio-economic background) to take the media in their own hands. The project aims to upscale a local project called “Young Journalists” in the framework of this project, young migrants were empowered to run and manage their own newspaper called “Migratory Birds” All the articles as well as the management of the newspaper were written by the young migrants themselves with the support of a team of media professionals. In the process of upscaling, the project aims to transfer this practice in 5 other countries and swift the focus from traditional media to digital media. The main objective of the project is to empower young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to equally participate in today’s information society. The first specific objective of the project is to increase media literacy and digital media skills of the disadvantaged young people through their empowerment to run and manage their own digital media. The second objective is to increase the skills of professionals to implement digital media training programs that will be effective for the specific target group. The project is going to develop a method on the training of disadvantaged youth in digital media. Then it si going to organise training for professionals and training for the youth. At the end the disadvantaged youth will be empowered to manage their own media.

Early leaving from education and training (ELET) is a serious issue in many EU countries and has attracted the attention of many researchers, policy-makers and educators. Although the situation varies across countries and the underlying reasons for students leaving early are highly individual, the process leading up to it includes a number of common elements: learning difficulties, socio-economic problems, or a lack of motivation, guidance or support.

Early leaving is highly challenging, not only for young people, but also for societies. For many, Early Leaving Education or Training will lead to reduced opportunities in the labour market and an increased likelihood of unemployment, poverty, health problems and reduced participation in political, social and cultural activities. Furthermore, these negative consequences have an impact on the next generation and may perpetuate the occurrence of early leaving. Youth unemployment in the EU is currently running at 20% and ELET contributes directly to it as employability depends strongly on the level of qualification achieved.

In order to understand why young people leave education and training early, it is moreover important to see ELET not only as a status or educational outcome but as a process of disengagement that occurs over time (Lyche, 2010). Chronic absenteeism and exclusion from school can be among the symptoms, or may even be the cause of students leaving early (Neild et al., 2007). However, there are more signs which indicate that students may be at risk. Warning signs may occur as early as in primary school and may be related to individual factors (e.g. educational performance, behaviour, attitudes) or to factors within individuals’ families, their schools, and communities . Understanding early leaving from education and training as a complex process, detecting early signals and identifying students who are at risk of leaving education and training early is therefore a prerequisite for developing targeted and effective measures to prevent it.