Migration and asylum seekers represent nowadays a great challenge for the whole Europe. Migrants’ integration and refugees’ flow have become topic of a lively debate across the enlarged Europe. In view of new migrants and those already fully had access to the social fabric, the EU countries have modified their own integration policies and a new debate has been activated: how to promote integration approaches, policies, theory and practices. Civil coexistence and mutual respect have to be built through educational and welfare interventions also in the labour field. Many practices have been experimented but it is really important to be aware that the integration process brings to a cultural change fighting against the xenophobic attitudes. According to this, learning has become for migrants the only weapon to defend themselves against prejudices and stereotypes. Learning represents the only way for migrants to defend themselves from xenophobic attacks, improving their social abilities, the ability of reading and decoding the context, trusting in their professional skills, being aware of their citizenship rights and responsibilities. The “MIGREMPOWER: Itineraries and resources for migrants and refugees’ empowerment and integration” project is aimed at: contributing to the fight against discrimination towards migrants and/or refugees by asking for the recognition of their citizenship rights; promoting the coexistence among society and migrants and/or refugees’ communities; considering educational and training as indispensable elements for the promotion of social cohesion and integration processes. The 8 EU entities from Spain, Italy, Cyprus, Austria and France, involved in this project, will achieve the project objectives by carrying out the study on policies and good practices addressed to migrants and refugees' social and labour integration, in order to analyse what has been already implemented and how to learn from past experiences; developing methodological and intervention tools and didactic materials for promoting migrants and refugees’ social and labour situation; undertaking in each partner country itineraries with in total 120 migrants and/or refugees in order to test the developed intervention tools, guidelines and training materials, to organized networking sessions aimed at enhancing best practices on migrant entrepreneurship and/or successful social and labour integration processes. The partnership will produce the following 4 Intellectual Outputs, all of them aimed at improving migrants and refugees’ social and labour conditions: o O1: Study on policies and good practices o O2: Orientation and counselling handbook o O3: Training package for reinforcing migrants and refugees’ competences and promoting their social and labour integration o O4: Guidelines for planning and carrying out actions aimed at promoting migrants and refugees’ employability By undertaking the project activities, a total of 150 entities working in the project field will be contacted for deeply analysing the good practices selected for O1, 120 migrants and/or refugees will be involved in the foreseen pilot experiences, as well as 60 professionals working with migrants/refugees, 30 migrants with successful stories will be involved in networking sessions, and 30 local entrepreneurs will be involved in the meetings with migrant and/or refugee jobseekers. Through accurate dissemination and exploitation campaigns, approx. 400 relevant stakeholders (policy-makers, local administrations, relevant service providers, representatives of associations, entities, NGOs related to the project field, trainers, etc.) will be directly involved in the dissemination and exploitation activities within the project, at least 6,000 stakeholders related to the project field will be reached at national and partner countries. and approx. 20,000 stakeholders and other relevant actors will benefit all over Europe.
Migration and asylum seekers represent nowadays a great challenge for the whole Europe, where the migrants’ integration and refugees’ flow have become topic of a lively debate across the enlarged Europe. The “MigrEmpower: Itineraries and resources for migrants and refugees’ empowerment and integration” project, was aimed to contribute to migrants/refugees’ social and labour integration in the hosting societies, involving 8 partner organizations from 6 EU countries: Spain, Italy, Cyprus, Germany, Austria and France. These 8 organizations attempted to promote equal opportunities and social inclusion by designing the MigrEmpower itinerary, a 3-phase path embodying intervention tools for orientation, assessment of competences, self-evaluation and empowerment aimed at promoting migrants and/or refugees’ integration, making them immediately usable by professionals and social workers. More in concrete, as a starting point for the MigrEmpower itinerary, a Study on integration policies and good practices (IO1) was elaborated by partners, offering the insights of the state-of-the-art of migrants and refugees both at European and partner countries level, selected Good Practices of social and labour integration and policy recommendations. On the basis of the carried out research, the MigrEmpower itinerary was designed by partners encompassing 3 phases: 1) the Orientation and Counselling phase (IO2), focused on participants’ first needs analysis, self-evaluation and balance of competences and qualifications; 2) the Training Package (IO3), with five modules in relation to the subjects of Computer Literacy, Linguistic Literacy, Citizenship and Social Skills, Communication and Personal Brand and Self-Employment; 3) the Guidelines for Employment Support (IO4), focused on the organization of meetings with local employers, networking sessions and other employment supporting activities addressed to improve participants’ employability and entrepreneurship. The itinerary was tested by project partners in the 6 EU countries during the 2nd project year by involving a total of 342 participants and 26 professionals. Evaluation activities demonstrated that participants benefitted from the itinerary, as they gained knowledge and information about local labour markets and job search strategies, improved or acquired key skills such as communication and language, empathy, solidarity, tolerance, creativity, open-mindedness, a sense of respect, equality and diversity through interculturality, dialogue, exchanges, informal moments and debates, gaining self-confidence and motivation. The successful piloting of the itinerary demonstrated that social and labour integration paths for migrants/refugees are possible: this requests a strong commitment and responsibility of all entities involved: policy makers, administrations, bodies/services working with these beneficiaries, employers, etc. Moreover, the itinerary has been considered as useful path for professionals as it provides a framework and tools that can be applied to all kinds of local and personal circumstances, thanks to its openness and high degree of flexibility. As well, by undertaking the piloting phase, partner organizations’ staff members and professionals working with migrants/refugees could enrich their knowledge and competences, acquiring new skills for supporting the beneficiaries, finally expanding their local networks in the sector. Through accurate dissemination and exploitation campaigns carried out through the production and distribution of brochure, 4 newsletters, creation of the project web page, a Facebook page and LinkedIn group, 2 press releases, organization of 6 final conferences in each partner country, publication of articles and participation in related events, a total number of 190,431 stakeholders was reached. Project sustainability is ensured by the adoption of the created tools in partners’ and stakeholders’ daily work, as the project Outputs can be part of future activities related to education and training of migrants/refugees, or be adapted and used to meet migrants/refugees’ needs as well as other disadvantaged groups around Europe, thanks to the high flexibility of the MigrEmpower methodology. The MigrEmpower materials are available in English, Spanish, Italian, German, Greek and French and freely accessible and downloadable from the project web site (www.migrempower.eu).