A recent OECD paper ‘Making Integration Work’ (2016) states that “the earlier humanitarian migrants (refugees, people with subsidiary protection or other protection status and resettled refugees) enter the labour market, the better their integration prospects in the long run”. International Monetary Fund confirms in its report from 2015 that “Investing one euro in welcoming refugees can yield nearly two euros in economic benefits within 5 years”. However, this group is particularly vulnerable and require targeted support at the beginning. They generally arrive with weak, if any attachment or link to the host country and have gained qualifications and work experience in very different labour market conditions. On EU average, it takes between five and six years to integrate more than 50 % of humanitarian migrants into the workplace and as much as 15 years to reach a 70 % employment rate converging towards the outcomes for labour migrants (European Parliament). Long periods of inactivity also lead to demotivation and deskilling; deskilling in turns means that they could only accept low-skilled jobs, remaining trapped in a low socioeconomic cycle. This impacts on their willingness and resilience to effectively commit to their integration. Moreover, low-skilled refugees are even more negatively affected than other migrants and they are left to find their own way in societies with high labour market threshold (European Council). The corrective action of ARIVE will strive to tackle all major causes that prevent refugees’ integration to boost levels of integration in communities, namely: - Lack of recognition of knowledge, competence and skills, including previous studies; - Deskilling and social isolation; -Lack of working experience in the host country and peer networks at a suitable professional/ vocational level; - Language and understanding of the civic and social landscape. The general objective of the project is to develop quality learning opportunities in order to encourage low-qualified and low-skilled humanitarian migrants to assess and upskill their competences in order to enter the labour market at early stages. This integration shall be facilitated taking into consideration the individual needs/capacities and labour market demand. To this end the project will: • facilitate the recognition of formal, non-formal and informal knowledge, competences and skills of refugees/subsidiary protection holders/asylum seekers through the design and implementation of a toolkit for integration skills assessment to enable signposting to suitable peer support groups; • transfer new qualifying skills to refugees/subsidiary protection holders/asylum seekers through tailored courses that meet their specific learning needs and characteristics, in particular the language and digital skills; • provide refugees/subsidiary protection holders/asylum seekers with hands-on experience through the creation and implementation of work-based laboratories facilitated by refugee support groups. The target group of ARIVE will be refugees/subsidiary protection holders and asylum seekers recently arrived to Europe. The project will address mostly (but not exclusively) low-skilled refugees. Female migrants will be given special consideration, integrating a gender approach in the design and implementation of project’s products. Although the beneficiaries of the action are constituted by humanitarian migrants only, the project’s products will be applicable to other kinds of migrants as well. The so-called “refugee crisis” is a phenomenon that is involving Europe as a whole, therefore, any action addressing this phenomenon should be carried out transnationally. Moreover, when they are granted protection, refugees often move to other countries and it is useful to have common tools and procedures for refugees’ skills assessment and training methodologies. The action is in line with the recommendations of the international community. In its “Note on the integration of refugees in the European Union” (2007), UNCHR states that host communities should facilitate the development of refugees’ language and vocational skills and assist them in pursuing employment. Similarly, recently OECD (2016) called for a) facilitating labour market access for refugees; b) recording and assessing humanitarian migrants’ foreign qualifications, work experience and skills; c) developing tailor-made integration approaches.
The ARIVE project addressed the todays need for increasing effectiveness and facilitating process of labour market integration of humanitarian migrants. This social group requires particular support at the beginning of integration to the society and labour market. They generally arrive with weak, if any attachment or link to the host country and have gained qualifications and work experience in very different labour market conditions. Generally, it takes long time (5-6 years) for integration of 50% of migrants in the area of EU countries. Long periods of inactivity also lead to demotivation and deskilling; deskilling in turns means that they could only accept low-skilled jobs, remaining trapped in a low socioeconomic cycle. Moreover, low-skilled refugees are even more negatively affected than other migrants are and they are left to find their own way in societies with high labour market threshold (European Council). The main activities within the project ARIVE are aimed to deal with all major causes that prevent refugees’ integration to boost levels of integration in communities. These issues include lack of recognition of knowledge, competence and skills, including previous studies; deskilling and social isolation; lack of working experience in the host country and peer networks at a suitable professional/ vocational level; language and understanding of the civic and social landscape. The general objective of the project was to develop quality learning opportunities in order to encourage low-qualified and low-skilled humanitarian migrants to assess and upskill their competences in order to enter the labour market at early stages. The primary target group in the project was professionals and educators working with counselling/education and employment of humanitarian migrants. They were involved directly in research, development and training activities. The secondary target group was humanitarian migrants, especially those with long distance to labour market due to low prior qualification and limited working experience. The elaborated deliverables were: O1: Report “Who is integrated in Europe? Social and labour market integration of the low-qualified humanitarian migrants in Europe” The methodology combines 3 main approaches for collecting information, combining quantitative and qualitative types of research:Desk research (statistics and regulations); Interviews with stakeholders (implementation from the perspective of professionals); Focus groups with humanitarian migrants (implementation from individual perspective); Existing national reports and analysis O2: Refugees Integration Assessment Toolkit: INTEGRASS. The “INTEGRASS” is a toolkit for assessing formal, non-formal and informal knowledge, competence and skills as well as the education level of the humanitarian migrants. The INTEGRASS was tested in the pilot activities. O3: Migrant Service Provider Curriculum Handbook with focus on upskilling and work-based laboratories The Curriculum Handbook embraces 2 parts: 1. UNDERSTANDING THE NEEDS of low-qualified migrants for better service provision by Migrant Service Provider. 2. COUNSELLING AND TRAINING MATERIAL FOR LOW-QUALIFIED MIGRANTS as a first step in integration process. The Curriculum Handbook was tested in the pilot activities. O4: Toolkit for the Validation and Quality Assurance of the Curriculum The Toolkit for the Validation and Quality Assurance of the Curriculum has been developed as a methodological support for implementation of IO2 and IO3 for trainining and counselling of low-qualified humanitarian migrants. This IO was the final step in the holistic approach for social/labour market integration of humanitarian migrants:1. Validation of formal and informal competences through INTEGRASS (IO2) 2. Training courses to empower the individual and cover learning gaps (IO3) 3. Development of individual action plan based on validation and training (IO4) O5: Guidelines for policy-makers and practitioners working with integration of low-qualified humanitarian migrants EU-wide guidelines has been developed with a set of recommendations and best practices focused on successful integration of low-qualified humanitarian migrants. About 160 participants took part in the interview, which allowed the partners to develop IO1 (Report “Who is integrated in Europe? Social and labour market integration of the low-qualified humanitarian migrants in Europe”), about 100 participants took part in training courses which allowed the partners to develop and finalize IO2, IO3, IO4. The project has contributed and will continue to promote the empowerment and active citizenship of adult learners in the long term impact. The benefits of humanitarian migrants who were an active part of the project during research, development and piloting of its intellectual outputs within the regional stakeholder networks are evident for the long-term impact.