The European Union faces a large influx of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees who want to settle down in Europe, according to the statistic Eurostat (2014), the number of people living in the EU-28 who were citizens of non-member countries was 19.6 million while the number of people living in the EU-28 who had been born outside of the EU was 33.5 million. The aim of the EU Member States is on the one hand to create a stable basis for a socially and culturally inclusive society to support the integration process of new members in society and on the other hand to promote a sustainable, smart, innovative and growing modern society. One of the ways to achieve this is "Education for Sustainable Development" (ESD), UNESCO, which allows every human the opportunity to acquire the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values necessary to shape a sustainable future. It means including key sustainable development issues into teaching and learning. ESD promotes competencies like critical thinking, imagining future scenarios and making decisions in a collaborative way.One of the target groups which are omitted from ESD measures are migrants. In most measures, especially in language and integration courses directed at migrants, there is little evidence of sustainable development (SD) measures. The lack there of is a serious issue since migrants are more likely to face social, economic and cultural exclusion, as well as discrimination and lack resources (European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research 2008, Martiniello and Rath 2014).The fact that some courses, projects, teaching materials contain ESD, demonstrates the importance of sustainability issues for integration work. However, the materials and projects are just fragmentary, which emphasises the significant impact the IN-Life project could have.IN-Life aims to promote concepts and methods for sustainable development by developing an innovative teaching approach for ESD within adult education sector. The aim is to empower migrants to actively contribute towards a sustainable society by raising the awareness of SD as well as improve capacities and knowledge within adult education for ESD for migrants. IN-Life strives to tackle the following three challenges of the EU: 1. Social, economic and cultural inclusion of migrants including third-nationals 2. Fighting unemployment 3. Foster SD by teaching and empowering people to become active for SD The project IN-Life includes the following groups in the project activities: - adult education providers, teachers, especially language teachers, trainers, all of them working with migrant learners;- stakeholders responsible for integration and sustainable development;- migrants taking part in the language courses or other courses who will take part in the educational activities. They will contribute and take an active role in the following activities: - analysis report on integration and language courses for migrants in the context of sustainable development and sustainable lifestyle concept, detailed needs and expectations of the different groups (migrant learners, language teachers); - development of a toolbox with good practices on education for sustainable development in form of catalogue of exercises, games, learning materials designed for levels from A1 to B2;- development of guidelines for potential users (adult education centres, migrant organisations) on how to implement the concept of sustainable development for migrant learners; - national multiplier events in Germany, UK, Italy and FranceIN-Life aims to:- promote smart growth by implementing effective and innovative teaching methods and tools in education for SD for the target group of migrant learners and enabling them to contribute to sustainability in Europe. - contribute to the capacity, efficiency and quality of adult education institutions throughout Europe by enabling them to reach, teach and empower migrants on SD by using developed innovative teaching materials designed for the specific target group. - bring together European partners with different expertise in the field of adult education, sustainable development and migration/integration/social inclusion. Working with migrants on education for sustainable development will advance research on sustainability. - strengthen language skills of migrant learners in receiving country to use new, content related tools (exercises, gamers, vocabulary linked to SD).- reinforce interaction between practice and policy for SD and integration. - improve the competences of migrant learners, migrant communities, as well as the partner organizations involved in the project. - promote access of socially vulnerable and excluded group of migrants, for adult education and ESD (discrimination, language barriers, lack of information, lack of social integration, marginalisation, energy poverty).
For some years now, Europe has been facing a massive flow of migrants with many of them coming from countries where Sustainable Development is anything but a well-known or implemented concept. Migrants often have various difficulties with their integration. They frequently do not face only social exclusion because of lack of language skills, but also cultural and economic downfalls. IN-Life wants to contribute to facilitate integration by providing language teaching/learning resources on Sustainable Development to people working with this target group and migrants themselves. The starting point to develop IN-Life teaching/learning resources on Sustainable Development and how to implement them in language teaching was twofold. On one hand, the project partnership representing adult education, integration measures and education for sustainable development, carried out a survey on the current education policy and progress of development of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in the context of education measures for migrant learners in four participating countries: Germany, Italy, France and Scotland. The survey included both desktop and field research on the current state of Education for Sustainable Development in the context of language provision and integration measures for migrant learners as well as on the awareness of the subject Sustainable Development among teachers and trainers working mostly in adult education and learners with migration backgrounds. The main tool used for conducting the survey was an interview questionnaire. The aim of the interviews was to set up the list of the most relevant topics of Sustainable Development. The results of the interviews gave a fruitful impulse for the development and expansion of the ideas, tools, exercises, group activities of education for Sustainable Development in the context of language provision for learners. On the other hand, the five priority action areas to advance the ESD agenda set up in the GAP – Global Action Programme and the 17 UNESCO Sustainable Development Goals are the foundation for the development of the teaching/learning resources as well as the Guidelines, with special focus on the Global Priority Action Areas. IN-Life mainly targets the following groups: • Stakeholders, leaders, policy makers and those responsible for development and implementation of integration measures, as well as education for Sustainable Development • Adult education providers, teachers and trainers, all working with migrant learners • Migrant learners, who can benefit from the new knowledge and skills gained on Sustainable Development. IN-Life develops and offers an integrated concept of language teaching with elements of Sustainable Development for the specific target group of migrant learners in the European Union and the project prepares adult education institutions to work with this target group on SD. IN-Life also intends to enhance the key competences of migrants and asylum seekers and, therefore, facilitates and promotes integration. So far this specific target group has been left out of measures for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in adult education. IN-Life addresses competences like communication in foreign languages, digital competence, learning to learn, social and civic competences, sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, as well as cultural awareness and expression. The developed resources are available online and a learning platform http://in-life.eu/home/ contains the teaching and learning resources and interactive content which in turn avoids printing costs and ensures waste prevention. IN-Life delivers a valuable contribution to inclusive education and training of all citizens in Europe with making available the learning and teaching materials in German, English, French and Italian (the most common mother tongues in Europe). With its contribution to ESD, IN-Life encourages the development of a smart, sustainable and inclusive society by giving migrant adult learners the chance to acquire basic and transferable skills for Sustainable Development (SD), gaining knowledge and experience in ESD, receiving a high-quality qualification and enhancing beneficiaries’ chances on the labour market. Through that educational, social and economic disparities are reduced in a sustainable way. As a side-effect, IN-Life also strengthens the capacity of education for Sustainable Development by raising awareness and enhancing the knowledge of Adult Education institutions for intercultural dialogue, diversity and Sustainable Development.