The aim of the PRISMA project is to discuss and exchange promising practices about active strategic inclusion of migrant communities in the decision processes as regards programme planning in adult learning organisations. This will be done between the partner organisations and other institutions and networks in the field - particularly migrant and refugee self organisations and networks - that are incorporated on regional/national level. The identified good practices will be shared between the partners in order to be mainstreamed in the participating organisations and beyond. Plenty of adult learning institutions across Europe are addressing migrants as target groups. They are often highly represented in the participation statistics: Migrants and refugees belong to the biggest groups of adult learning participants in language training; they take part in various formal and non-formal vocational education measures and more. Nevertheless, as regards social inclusion of migrant communities, there are still obstacles to be overcome. Migrants are often seen as recipients of education in the fields described above. What is often lacking is a real active participation throughout the portfolio of adult learning activities, like political, social education etc., addressing migrants as both recipients and providers of knowledge. To improve effective adult learning strategies towards migrant communities, it is necessary to actively include migrant communities in the mid and long term development of adult learning programmes. This is crucial for a successful inclusion in the educational field, since particularly in adult education mechanisms to include learners into strategic decisions are rarely applied. Basing on a common understanding about opportunities and limitations in the active strategic inclusion of migrant communities into strategic planning, the project consortium will develop a catalogue of criteria to identify good practices in the strategic involvement of migrant communities in adult learning. These criteria will be guiding the project partners throughout the project lifetime, when it comes to implement good practices within their own organisations, and to select and disseminate them to the public. The project outcomes will be disseminated thoughout the partner organisations' networks and beyond. Additionally, a multilingual project website will enable the full access to the project results. Furthermore, a community of practice will be established on the Electronic Platform for Adult Learning in Europe (EPALE) as a tool to exchange and communicate between adult learning experts and decision makers. The project consortium itself consists of partners from across Europe with long-term experience in formal and/or non-formal educational work addressing migrants and/or refugees. Representatives from migrant communities and migrant / refugee self organisations will be included in the project process from the very beginning.
The aim of the PRISMA project was to discuss and exchange promising practices about active strategic inclusion of migrant communities in the decision processes as regards programme planning in adult learning organisations. This has been done between the partner organisations and other institutions and networks in the field - particularly migrant and refugee self organisations and networks - that were incorporated to the partner organisations at regional/national level. The identified good practices has been shared between the partners. Background of the project was that plenty of adult learning institutions across Europe are addressing migrants as beneficiaries. As regards social inclusion of migrant communities, there are still obstacles to be overcome: Migrants are often seen as recipients of education in the fields described above. What is often lacking is a real active participation throughout the portfolio of adult learning activities, like political, social education etc., addressing migrants as both recipients and providers of knowledge. To improve effective adult learning strategies towards migrant communities, it is necessary to actively include migrant communities in the mid and long term development of adult learning programmes. This is crucial for a successful inclusion in the educational field, since particularly in adult education mechanisms to include learners into strategic decisions are rarely applied. Basing on a common understanding about opportunities and limitations in the active strategic inclusion of migrant communities into strategic planning, the project consortium developed a catalogue of criteria to identify good practices in the strategic involvement of migrant communities in adult learning. On the basis of these criteria, the project partners developed a grid for assessing good practices, which has finally been further developed into a self-assessment form for adult learning providers. With the help of this assessment form, adult learning institutions will be able to check their level of active participation of migrants and migrant communities towards the strategic inclusion into programme planning. Besides, the use of the assessment form can foster self-reflection on these issues within organizations, thus contributing to the organizational development. The grid offers an opportunity to a deeper understanding of the organizational stat-of-the-art as regards migrant inclusion in programme planning. Both assessment form and grid have been tested by the partners individually in several local organizations and projects. The tools developed in the project can be downloaded on the project website, on the EPALE resource centre, and on the Erasmus+ project results database. During the project lifetime, the partner organizations met three times in person (in Germany, Lithuania and Cyprus, while due to the pandemic restrictions the last 2 project meetings were held virtually. In the project meetings, representatives from local organisations (migrant organisations and adult learning providers) were involved in order to discuss and contribute to the project outcomes. Further online gatherings between the meetings were held to ensure the quality of the partnership activities.