Companions into adult life

Ben is not being easily discouraged by job rejections. Even though the 19-year-old has been looking for work for a "mega long time", as he says himself. Ben finds the motivation to keep fighting from Tess Malano, among others. "Tess tries to help me", he says. The youth worker is responsible for the Outreach Youth Work project in Dudelange. The two met a few years ago at a fair with company stands and orientation offers in the city in the south of the country.

Ben has been looking for work since he quit school at 16. Why he left school early, he says, is "a complicated story". Since then, the 19-year-old, who would prefer to work in retail selling clothes or groceries, has been at the youth centre of Dudelange practically every day. He felt at home there right away. "One basically got along with each other right away", he says. On this afternoon at the end of July, he is part of a graffiti activity of the youth centre. The conversations with the educators are informal. They know each other.

To actively seek out and activate early school leavers or inactive adolescents and young adults in their living environment: This is the core idea of Outreach Youth Work and a comparatively new approach in Luxembourg's youth work.