The Jesuit refugee service for the integration of refugees and the Institute for Youth Development and Innovation have opened a series of workshops with the aim to educate refugees from war-stricken areas of the world, Vecernji List daily reported on Friday.

Tvrtko Barun, leader of the Jesuit refugee service, and the head of the Institute for Youth Development and Innovation, Nenad Bakic, signed on Friday a cooperation agreement which involves a series of programming workshops, both for children and adult refugees.

The workshops will be held in the Centre for the Integration of Refugees (SOL) in Zagreb, and there are already about a dozen participants, coming from Iran, Iraq, Ukraine, Zaire, Syria, and Egypt.

“This agreement means a long-term cooperation to the benefit of refugees, providing them with education and a better position on the labour market. They can attend other classes here, as well: Croatian language, computer skills…” said Tvrtko Barun, adding that each participant will receive a certificate upon completion of the workshop.

Barun added that the next workshop will be organized for children refugees, because they wished to prepare the young generations for the future.

“Every person has the right to be an equal in Croatia and the EU … We know that the future is here, but it is not evenly distributed, and this is why we are organizing these workshops for refugees to develop STEM competencies,” said Nenad Bakic.

Although some of the participants speak Croatian, the workshops will be held in English.