The IRETI-Empowering Women and Strengthening socioeconomic Integration project has as its goal the sharing and development of best practices in education for adults. The project was born from the idea to provide real support to victims of trafficking. Europe is one of the most common destinations for victims of trafficking and in recent years the number of identified cases have risen. According to Eurostat, in the period between 2010 and 2012 there have been identified 30,146 victims of trafficking. Italy has the highest number of 6,572 victims, followed by 4,474 in England, 3,243 in Romania and 1,984 in Spain. IRETI project aims to promote social integration, gender equality and creating equal opportunities for victims of trafficking. Through the creation of on-line platform and its services, this project seeks to stimulate entrepreneurial spirit and offer educational and working opportunities. Social workers and educators will improve their methodological skills; furthermore, the platform will offer tools that will help them to increase the quality of their work. Taking into account the victims of trafficking, every organization will form a group of 10-15 women. In the period of two months they will be taking part in local activities which will include ICT literacy, language lessons and economic enterprise courses. As for the professionals and volunteers involved in the mobility, each partner association will choose three individuals with an interest in adult education and in the theme of the project. They will be selected on the basis of their qualifications and their professional experience. Participants in the mobility will participate in the mid-term and final meetings, in order to express feedback regarding the project activities. In addition, there will be other three meetings organized for the staff, in order to allow all participants to meet and share their experiences of mobility and enrich each other's competences. There will be also organized five days mobility for educators and trainers specialized in non-formal education. Throughspecific activities to educators will be taught how to facilitate interaction and confrontation of victims of trafficking. The methodology that we intend to apply is non-formal education. Given the chosen methodology, each organization will organize an internal staff training session about the non-formal education to be presented during the various activities and meetings. The main results relate to the starting of the training, for example professional courses on how to find and apply for paid internships; increase of the transversal and professional skills for both target groups; establishment of on-line platform where victims of trafficking can find opportunities for training and mutual support through the European network created; increase of visibility coverage of the Erasmus Plus Program and of the European opportunities for the victims of trafficking, but also for volunteers and professionals involved; integration to the labour market of the target group through the organization of cooperatives or small businesses; expansion of the operational capacity of the organizations involved, its volunteers and trainers in the field of adult education and the creation of T-kit during the workshop which will serve as an innovative support tool in addressing the issue of trafficking in adult education. Furthermore, the support offered on the online platform for the victims of trafficking,could be expanded on an international level in order to raise a global awareness of the phenomenon. The potential benefits in the long run foresee the dissemination of innovative approaches to combat the socio-economic inequalities that victims of trafficking are facing, and their greater competitiveness on the labor market in order to promote full employment.
Europe is one of the most common destinations for victims of trafficking and before the current anti-boat docking policies, which have significantly contributed to limiting not so much the departures but the arrivals, in recent years the identified cases have increased significantly, especially for young women coming from Nigeria and Ivory Coast (GRETA and IOM data). Apart from arrivals by sea, many women are also trafficked from other countries and through other routes, such as the flows ì Latin America to Spain or from Albania / Moldova / Romania through the Eastern route. The IRETI-Empowering Women and Strengthening Socioeconomic Integration project was born from the idea of providing real support to victims of trafficking, through the sharing of good practices in the field of adult education, thus promoting social integration processes, gender equality and creation of equal opportunities for women victims of trafficking, by encouraging the formation of an entrepreneurial spirit and acting as a provider of services and opportunities through the creation of the online platform. At the same time, the realization of the final products, such as the methodological toolkit and the guide to good practices, as well as the international training opportunities have allowed working directly with frontline social workers, increasing their skills and tools to carry out quality work. In this sense, it was very important to ensure the involvement of the operators and bodies involved for the entire duration of the project, with some of them participating in the various mobilities (both short and long term). From the point of view of the involvement of the direct beneficiaries, it is important to underline that because of the bureaucracy (in terms of travel documents and visas), it was much more difficult to manage the participation of survivors of trafficking, however guaranteeing more than satisfactory results. It is also important to note the contribution of the women and the social workers in the creation of the final products, through highly valuable final inputs and feedback. In total, thanks only to the international mobilities, 40 beneficiaries directly took part in IRETI's activities. Great success also regards the methodology chosen, as in fact, the main results refer to the activation of training through non-formal education, with which many participants were confronted for the first time, and with great enthusiasm. This has led to an increase in transversal skills, also through the online platform where victims of trafficking can find training and mutual support opportunities thanks to the activated European network, in order to also raise global awareness of the phenomenon. The platform, and the project in general, also ensured great media visibility of the Erasmus Plus Program and European opportunities for victims of trafficking and for the volunteers and professionals involved. In the long term, we expect great exploitation of the produced materials, especially the toolkit, in order to support evidence-based and international approaches to combat the socio-economic inequalities faced by victims of trafficking and greater competitiveness on the labor market. Finally, the platform has shown a great potential that goes beyond what was expected and implemented within the project, therefore, it will certainly represent a starting point for other initiatives.