In 2015, the number of people applying for asylum in the EU peaked at 1.3 million to trigger the current migration crisis. Europe is increasingly diverse. Today, there are 20 million non-EU nationals residing in the EU who make up 4% of its total population. Human mobility, in varying degrees and for a variety of different reasons, will be an inherent feature of the 21st century for Europe, implying that the EU not only needs to step up gear when it comes to managing migration flows, but also when it comes to its integration concepts. We believe that developing and sharing effective integration concepts is about investing for the long-term. We believe that this integration starts at our school, in our communities and in our local companies. Our project focuses on the analysis and comparison of successful integration programs throughout the EU. Our final product, a website that includes reports, interviews & videos, informs about transferrable ideas for other integration projects. In addition, our product will be accessible worldwide, allowing teachers to teach and discuss this complex topic and organize a political simulation game. Our main objectives are to - raise our students’ awareness of how to integrate newly arrived immigrants, - foster the development of intercultural competence, the basis of tolerance, - allow our students to become aware of the chances and challenges of integration in order to form a personal opinion about the topic, - thus to broaden their political, social and civic competences and to foster critical thinking instead of an uncritical adaption of populistic ideologies and - enable other stakeholders to learn from efficient, well-established concepts of integration practiced in other EU countries Description and methodology: Consequently, these objectives are taken into account in our project by practically approaching the following sub-topics. These focal points are structured from general to specific: 1. De jure: the EU coping with integration: law and politics 2. De facto: regional focus on social integration concepts of local authorities and integration programs in our schools 3. Private integration initiatives and NGOs 4. Labour Market Integration Each of these modules concentrates on the comparison of different ways of integrating newly arrived immigrants in the respective countries.These four modules culminate in module 5: presentation & dissemination event. The first one module examines political decision-findings regarding the intake of refugees within the European legal framework. Following this, we simulate an international panel discussion on the current refugee crisis, focussing on underlying reasons, legal opportunities, humanitarian necessities and pragmatic approaches to deal with the crisis. The second module compares and evaluates local authorities’ different approaches to integration as well our schools’ approaches and invites students to interview authorities in politics, principals/ teachers and newly arrived immigrants, about the advantages and short comings of their individual integration process. In cooperation with the local media, these interviews will be prepared, produced and uploaded to our project website -- we hereby train our students in developing a critical media literacy. The third module analyzes (compare and evaluate) private initiatives by NGOs in our region in order to find role model initiatives which a) inspire our students to demonstrate social commitment themselves and b) to make public and disseminate projects that have been successful. That’s why our students form international groups that do an two-day internship at local NGOs in order to learn about the problems of recruiting volunteers, challenges in terms of financing and management and their individual approach to further promote integration. Based on this internship, our students create a video motivating young people to commit themselves. Our perspective on this fourth subject matter is twofold: a) one focus lies on the challenges and chances from the perspective of newly arrived immigrants and b) the common challenges companies face willing to integrate refugees into their companies. Based on these two perspectives, our students organize a panel discussion, inviting representatives of both sides to discuss problems and possible solutions for a successful integration. Each of the three partners have been wisely chosen based on their specific expertise, their contacts to external stakeholders and their characteristic profile with regard to our above mentioned objectives. Each exchange meeting has been assigned a topic due to the special profile or need of the respective school. We will set up a website which includes all of our diverse results in forms of interviews, videos and presentations. The open website is the basis of a free, downloadable innovative simulation game which can be used and completed by teachers with additional materials.
In 2015, the number of people seeking asylum in the EU reached its peak of 1.3 million and triggered the refugee crisis. Even six years later, the EU and its member states have not solved the refugee crisis yet, refugees are still drowning or living under inhumane conditions in refugee camps in the so-called “First States”. Integration remains one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century for politics and society. Over the past 30 months, we have encountered projects, measures and ideas that demonstrate the creatively diverse approaches that can be used to respond to challenges of integration of refugees. In a consistent and multidimensional comparison of countries, we examined the strategies of flagship projects to successfully shape immigrant integration processes. In addition to raise the awareness of the complexity of integration processes, the project focused on promoting students' political, social, and civic competencies successively. Furthermore, they developed an in-depth and solution-oriented view of the interrelationships of integration, which served to strengthen them in a critical examination of political and social processes. At the same time, the exchange between the different partners should be encouraged so that they could benefit from each other's ideas and strategies. For this purpose, we concentrated on different main points in a modular structure: C1 De jure: law and policy in international politics C2 De facto: integration concepts of the regions & the education sector C3 Private integration initiatives & NGOs C4 Integration in the labor market as well as the cumulation in C5: Presentation & Dissemination. The results of the individual modules as well as our business game designed in C4 are freely accessible on our website http://erasmus-refugeesintegration.eu/ for further use, in the sense of a digital teaching material and exchange platform. This is in line with our philosophy that collaboration only proves mutually productive when one side learns from the other. The modules aimed at a multidimensional view, focusing on the perspective of the migrants, the affected stakeholders as well as the given preconditions and restriction. The first module examined the policy-making processes regarding the integration of refugees within the European legal framework. During the first mobility, students created different political roles of the European Parliament in international groups who conducted interviews on the causes, legal possibilities, humanitarian necessities and pragmatic approaches to the crisis in order to create an understanding of policy-making processes. This exposure helped students to improve their political, social, civic, and critical thinking skills, as well as understand the need for integration. The second module compared exemplary approaches to integration by local authorities and the education sector. The selected projects focused on different aspects and problems of integration processes. Based on this, we visited regional integration projects. The joint dialogue with external partners focused on a transnational exchange on strategies and approaches and trained a critical and solution-oriented view on preconditions for integration processes. In C3 private initiatives of NGOs in our regions were analyzed. The goal was to offer the students insights into social engagement, to understand the essential role of social responsibility and to encourage their willingness to become socially active themselves. For this purpose, we developed a motivational video for young people together. We also talked to local NGOs and discussed the opportunities and challenges of integration processes and social responsibility. The students in C4 dealt with the question of how successful integration processes can be designed at the level of labor markets and vocational training and how companies respond to various challenges online. In addition, to various interviews, the students developed a mock debate in which representatives of the three countries developed a joint project to improve the integration of refugees in the labor markets. This included the findings of the previous modules. This approach promotes the multidimensional, action-oriented view of our students in a special way. C5 served as an overview and summary of our project. During this online mobility, we critically examined the knowledge, facts and information we gained as well as our results.