Effects of Awareness Raising Activities on Reduction of Prejudice against Refugees
Effects of Awareness Raising Activities on Reduction of Prejudice against Refugees

Summary/Abstract: The study was built upon the assumption that people’s inclination to fear from and discriminate against refugees stems from the prejudices imposed by the society that are easily nurtured when people lack adequate knowledge about refugees, either because they are not informed about the real situation or because they are misinformed about it. It presents results of an empirical research that is based on pre-test-post-test evaluation design conducted as part of a Project supported by the UNHCR office in Skopje and conducted by the Center for Human Rights and Conflict Resolution during 2016-2017. The Project intended to raise young people’s awareness about causes of the recent refugee flee and its consequences on refugees through participation of 124 young people (unemployed youth, university students and high-school student) in two-day workshops. Each workshop involved participants in interactive activities that dealt with the issues of forced migration, cultural diversity, stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination, and human rights in general, and in relation to refugees in particular. A questionnaire containing two sets of measures of the participants’ level of prejudice towards refugees were first administered before the workshop started (pre-test condition) and repeated after the workshop ended (post-test condition). Both sets of measures contained items on Likert scale (range 1-5): one set of 12 items measured negative attitude towards refugees while the other set of 6 items measured social distance. The statistical analysis (t-test) indicated significant differences between means obtained in the two conditions (pre-test/post-test) for each of the two sets of measures as well as for each individual item in both sets. This finding, together with the fact that all workshop participants engaged willingly in social/humanitarian actions related to refugees, allowed for the conclusion that working with young people on raising their awareness about refugees’ needs and rights is a powerful tool for combating prejudices against refugees.

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