Mira Media, Ervet, the Migrant Resource Centre and Active Watch work in multicultural and socially marginalized neighborhoods in Utrecht, Amsterdam, London, Bologna en Bucharest with schools, migrants, Roma and socially marginalized families on media literacy- and education related issues. They observe the growing attention for safer Internet use and digital skills in general, but also notice an apparent lack of attention and information for parents from Migrant, Roma parents Socially marginalized families (MRS – parents) concerning these issues . Based on a joint investigation they found that MRS parents are not always able to support their children in their use of Internet as they themselves do not always have the appropriate skills, knowledge and experience. Existing information on Internet use of children, is not appealing to them and sometimes not understandable because of language used. Conversations with (multicultural) schools, educational - and media literacy professionals showed little experience in working with MRS parents. DGGMLF aims to provide MRS parents with alternative pathways to improve their knowledge, competences and skills by giving them new opportunities to access adult education. It reaches out to MRS parents which normally do not participate in activities and aims to support these parents to cope with their educational challenges regarding the internet use of their children and their basic (digital) skills needed to support their children and to participate in the digitalizing societies. By training intercultural media coaches and MRS Cyber parents, DGGMLF is involving the expertise from within the communities itself, which will both offer schools and adult education the needed intercultural support and the communities the necessary accessible support from within their own community. In order to do so, DGGMLF aims to create to sustainable local adult learning offers for MRS parents by using and improving the quality and local co-operation between organizations involved in adult- and school education and between the MRS communities and these educational institutions . 1200 Migrant, Roma and parents from Socially marginalized families (MRS – parents) are the direct target groups of the project. 500 Educational professionals , policy makers and other professionals are the indirect target group. All partners will conduct a national research on the internet use of MRS children and their parents. They will recruit and train ten intercultural media coaches, which will facilitate educational information- and follow up meetings with MRS parents and the coaching and training of MRS cyber parents. DGGMLF develops and executes in four pilot neighborhoods five educational workshops for parents about the internet use of their children. Ten MRS cyber parents will be selected and recruited. They will be trained on how to anticipate on educational questions from fellow parents, how to support schools in involving MRS parents. Five follow up thematic workshops and digital skills courses for MRS parents will be developed and executed. In the second transnational DGGMLF Academy implementation plans will be discussed on how to establish and maintain and on how to implement the project to neighborhoods in the rest of the participating cities. Based on this, in local conferences existing educational networks will be encouraged to participate in implementing DGGMLF in schools and community centers . Ten more educational information meetings, selection, recruitment and training of new cyber parents, twenty follow up information meetings and courses improving digital skills will be realized . Moreover, each city will establish five flagship digital support points in schools and public spaces. The implementation process will monitored and evaluated based upon the joint transnational Quality Assurance (QA) plan. A transnational DGGMLF toolkit will be produced , which will be presented and disseminated during the Final European DGGMLF conference in the Netherlands. DGGMLF develops a bottom up approach, by using intercultural media coaches who know the cultural background of the MRS parents and are, if needed, able to speak their languages. MRS cyber parents are from the same communities and will be able to identify problems in an early stage and are able to answer simple questions. The educational activities will take place in trusted environments during convenient timeslots and the materials used in the information meetings, workshops and courses are directly linked to and recognizable for the MRS parents. The flagship digital support point will be supported by volunteers and MRS cyber parents. Planned results : 40 intercultural media coaches; 80 MRS cyber parents; 500 involved educational professionals and policymakers. 20 flagship digital support points. 4 national reports. Transnational DGGMLF toolkit. Durable implementation DGGMLF in 4 major EU cities.
The Digital Generation Gap in Migrant and Low Educated Families (DGGMLF) is a transnational consortium of like-minded organisations and experts in the fields of media, digital literacy and human rights. Initiated in September 2014 and completed in August 2017, the project was developed and managed by Mira Media, ERVET – The Territorial Development Agency of Emilia-Romagna Region, ActiveWatch and Migrants Resource Centre. Mira Media and its partners work in multicultural and socially marginalized neighborhoods in Utrecht, Amsterdam, London, Bologna and Bucharest with schools, migrants, Roma and low educated families on media literacy and education related issues. They observed the growing attention for safer Internet use and digital skills in general, but also noticed an apparent lack of attention and information for Migrant, Roma and Socially marginalized families (MRS-parents). Based on a joint investigation the partners found out that MRS parents are not always able to support their children in their use of internet as they themselves do not always have the appropriate skills, knowledge and experience. Existing information on internet use of children is not appealing to them and sometimes not understandable because of the language use (that is not user-friendly and culturally relevant). DGGMLF provides MRS-parents with alternative pathways to improve their knowledge, competences and skills by giving them new opportunities to access adult education. The partners reach out to MRS-parents who normally do not participate in activities organized by mainstream society and provide them support to cope with their educational challenges regarding the internet use of their children and the basic digital skills needed to participate in the digitized era. All four partners have conducted a national research on the internet use of MRS-children and their parents. Existing educational projects and services have been analyzed in order to pick up lessons learned and successful methodologies, while intercultural media and digital literacy policies of local administration and schools have been described. Special attention was placed on identifying the communication lines to and with the MRS-communities in the neighbourhood areas. Furthermore, available digital facilities and existing educational initiatives on media literacy, digital skills and language have also been mapped. Based on this information, the participating organisations established local networks with schools, community centres, libraries, mosques and MRS-communities and other relevant stakeholders. The project activities have been developed from within the communities at locations familiar to the target groups – this is different from most of the existing approaches in which educational activities were organized and offered in central locations for which individuals can apply. DGGMLF put emphasis on organising many of the meetings with parents in locations which are trusted and frequented by them. The project identified and involved expertise from within the communities by training 48 coaches with a professional intercultural background and who could communicate with parents in their own languages. These media coaches facilitated 107 educational meetings with MRS-parents, as well as 109 follow up workshop and digital skills courses. From within the group of MRS-families who participate in project activities, DGGMLF encouraged the more digitally skilled parents to become cyberparents by assisting the media coaches during workshops and getting involved in the development of local support structures. 119 cyberparents were involved in project activities. By coaching intercultural media professionals and MRS cyberparents, DGGMLF engaged expertise from the community which offered intercultural support to local schools and adult education centres, and, at the same time, providing accessible and familiar services to MRS families. For the purpose of building sustainable support in the neighbourhoods, DGGMLF also laid the foundation for developing 13 digital support points in cooperation with local stakeholders, media coaches and cyberparents where MRS-parents can go for assistance on digital-related aspects. Overall, more than 1100 migrant, Roma, marginalized and low educated parents have participated in DGGMLF activities (information meetings, internet safety/media literacy programs and digital skills workshops). Almost 5200 educational professionals, policy makers and other professionals in the field have been the indirect target group. Transnational cooperation was an opportunity to learn from different national approaches, to exchange and develop materials for specific MRS communities which can be used in similar contexts across Europe.