The integration of people immigrating presents a special challenge; it is a complex and long-term undertaking. Anyone who is in favour of immigration should make an effort to foster the successful integration of immigrants. Those in favour of immigration are persons closely working with migrants, they represent educational sectors: teachers, trainers, educators; or social and care sectors: volunteers, social care workers, municipal guards, police etc. The project SIMILAR aims at fostering integration of migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers through a multi-dimensional approach which includes multicultural approach and empowering measures in the areas of integration and social welfare.In order to achieve expected results the following activities will be implemented: • cross country analysis report and summaries on overall system of support, including existing empowering measures and their effectiveness and the needs, problems, expectations of migrants;• handbook “Awareness raising and empathy training measures for promoting work with migrants” with curriculum for those working with the migrants focusing on multicultural approach with focus and significance of empowering measures for migrants• toolkit “Empowerment of migrants” on empowering best practices to improve social, economic, educational and personal situation of migrants;The project begins by collecting information from experts who work with the target group regularly and collect information on their experiences. This will include professionals working for the municipalities and federal offices as well as volunteers and educators at the local, regional and national levels, responsible for language learning and those providing assistance in finding appropriate housing or solutions to other social care needs. The feedback from these activities will serve as the basis for the knowledge sharing and capacity building on integration measures targeting migrants which will then be further developed into a handbook.An additional outcome from the interviews will be the toolkit which includes concrete information on initiatives and empowerment measures with information for implementation. The toolkit will be collection and adaptation of existing good practices; this will support the mainstreaming and implementation of already existing measures. The output is designed to increase the degree of autonomy and self-determination of migrants while minimalizing their social isolation by providing high quality, relevant resources in the hands of those who work closely with the target group.The project activities address the following direct target groups: 1. Migrants in participating countries who have been living in partner countries. It is expected that min 20 migrants in each country will share their opinions, expectations in the form of biographical interviews. The aim is to gain insight of the experiences, expectations and current needs. 2. Experts in the field of integration (stakeholders, policy makers, persons responsible for design of the integration measures), min 20 in each partner country, they will take part in the focused interviews. Additionally, at least two external experts for the assessment of the draft version of handbook and toolkit for empowerment of migrants.3. Educators, Teachers, Educational Staff, they will take an active part in multiplier events in each country, at least 15 per country. The multiplier event will include not only presentation but also workshops, focus groups in order to get in the situation of migrants, to let the participants to understand "the feeling of being migrants" and transfer the mulitcultural approach in teaching as well as educational empowerment. 4. Volunteers, persons working in social care, police, municipal police, city Guards, they will take an active part in multiplier events in each country, at least 15 per country. The multiplier event will include not only presentation but also workshops, focus groups in order to get in the situation of migrants, to let the participants to understand "the feeling of being migrants" and transfer the mulitcultural approach as well as various empowerment measures in social, educational, economical context.Impact: Better understanding of culture not only other people but also own and its implications, complex process which people become members of communities, creates basic attitudes, values and norms construconstructs a basis for facilitating process of integration. The project will support to build and improve the capacity of institutions, organisations working closely with migrants and working in favour of integration. The persons equipped in multicultural competencies and empowerment knowledge are able to take into account cultural diversity of migrants, to better understand cultures and its implications to integration and learning process, and last but not least they can be more flexible in their changing role in social and adult education fields.
Integration is the process of progressively embedding migrants into a society, aiming at minimizing “social exclusion”. To support the process, partners from five European Union countries (Poland, Germany, Slovenia, Hungary and Cyprus) has joined their experience to develop tools which will help raise and strengthen awareness of persons working closely with migrants in the field of social cohesion, intercultural dialogue, empowerment and equality, which are starting point for proper and successful integration migrants with society. The consortium aimed to combat discrimination and segregation of migrants, reducing disparities in the society, promote positive approach towards migrants, especially refugees, asylum seekers as well as to create more inclusive education for all groups in the society. A consortium created by a carefully chosen group of various organisations – University (responsible for preparing professionals), NGOs working directly with migrants (incl. beneficiaries of international protection), research and development centre - representing countries from different parts of EU, with different experience in the migration and integration field, ensured that the potential off all partners was fully exploited, each partner benefited from the participation in the project and the theoretical approach was enriched by practical solutions. The following resources have been prepared: 1) New dimensions of migration processes and existing models of integration in Europe - detailed report based on data collected in Poland, Germany, Slovenia, Hungary and Cyprus, 2) Handbook “Awareness raising and empathy training measures for promoting work with migrants”, 3) Training materials (appendix to the handbook addressed to trainers), 4) Best practices collection (Partners have selected several best practices, which support the integration of migrants in various areas). The project begun with collecting information from migrants and experts who work with the target group regularly and collected information on their experiences. This included professionals working for the municipalities and federal offices as well as volunteers and educators at the local, regional and national levels, responsible for language learning and those providing assistance in finding appropriate housing or solutions to other social care needs. Following the results of Analysis partnership started to work on the IO2 Handbook “Awareness raising and empathy training measures for promoting work with migrants”. The results of initial works framed by the guidelines prepared by ULO in the mid July 2017 as well as results of the FLAM project were later discussed during the consortium meeting in Budapest in November 2017. As a consequence the new scheme of IO2 learning materials were proposed so that they would better fit the final beneficiaries needs and the changing context of migration in Europe. In detail, the IO2 Handbook and the IO2 Training materials were prepared as two single documents so that the beneficiaries can use them separately, e.g. to improve knowledge and self-awareness of educators in migrant-related issues (IO2 Handbook) or to provide more practical examples of intercultural problems during courses with practitioners (IO2 Training materials). The draft version of the IO2 Handbook and IO2 Training materials were piloted by each project partner during spring 2018 and the final versions of these documents in partner languages were presented during the final multiplier events in Autumn 2018. The collection of best practices begun prior to the start of this output during IO1 activities, but those best practices were then be re-evaluated based on the selection criteria done during this activity. The partners took into consideration best practices from the above-mentioned funding actions, European website for integration and also the partners’ own networks and institutions. The adaptation of measures was the next phase, with special emphasis for education empowerment, civic participation and engagement as well as economic engagement. Some of these measures were the outcome of the interviews and research analysis of IO1. Impact reflected mostly during face-to-face sessions, so while focus groups and interviews organised within IO1, piloting sessions with target groups and multiplier events. Participants got new knowledge, know-how and skills on multicultural approach in teaching which can be applied in the education measures. The activities had a great impact on raising awareness on the existing situation and of the needs and expectations of migrants in the context of learning; also better understanding of empowerment measures not only in the context of language acquisition but also in the context of social, cultural and labour market integration. At a wider level the project has given partners an increase in knowledge of the different country contexts regarding migration and EU integration policies and good practices.