The project „Competence through Education“ covers educational work in four partner organizations out of four European countries with direct and indirect target groups. The project is aimed directly towards professionals (skilled workers) of each participating partner organization, which will be trained as multipliers in the project. The indirect target groups are: GefAS (DE): refugees and immigrants, Hel.S.S.A. (GR): local long-term unemployed and immigrants, D.R.A.K. z.s. (CZ): focuses on sinti and roma and Include+ (IT): low-qualified immigrants from East Europe. A steering group will take part during the planned transnational project meetings and will consist of two persons per partner organization (authorized signatory and project management). This group is accompanied by two further people each, which will contribute to the group as multiplier and stakeholder for the realization of the integrated workshops and the transnational exchange during the project. The participating partner organizations each delegate 6 competent employees and specialists in integration work and field of adult education. They will be trained as multipliers and support the transnational exchange and will implement the project in the participating organizations. They must be prepared to continue working in the project after its end and must be able to give a lecture transnationally. We will include each indirect target group in the project during each local activity in order to test the developed methods from the method box, which is elaborated during the project duration. This testing is only possible through the exchange about the experiences made between the training. The main goal of the project “Competence through Education” is structured into several key qualifications such as: language, work, participation and self-determination in social life. Each participating organization will take over one of these key qualifications during their individual short-term training. In order to encourage the common exchange regarding the experiences within each target group, we will already create and apply the particular training modules during the transnational project meetings. Although each organization will receive an individual aspect of integration to develop and work on, all participating organizations (Germany, Italy, Greece and the Czech Republic) will have to go through the process of competence expansion through education in the area of language, work, participation, confidence and self-determination in the context of the overall project. Therefore, all participating project organizations are involved and also responsible in the project, from the beginning until the end, regarding the development of the method box and material collection for the project. Through the transnational exchange during the project duration, the participants will get to know the indirect target groups of each partner organization and the problems which they encounter in terms of integration. Thereby, the understanding for the various situations of the partner countries will be developed. Through the exchange about barriers of different target groups in the area of adult education, a sensitization for motivational training and intercultural competence will arise. As a result of the joint short-term training, professionals from the participating institutions will be trained as multipliers, in order to be used as speakers in their own organization and in the partner institutions. They have skills of learn and teaching methods in the area of non-formal education and can motivated as well as assist during the learning process. An important result of the project will be the elaboration and testing of the method box and material collection. It will be available for the partner organizations and the public on the project´s website and the dissemination platform EPRP. The participating organizations are highly motivated to reinforce their social work with minorities. After the completion of the project we expect a more qualified, networked, European cooperation of the participating organizations. More stakeholders will support the work of the institutions. In order to ensure the sustainability of the project, we will already focus on connective structures during the duration of the project The steering group developed by the partners will stay in contact even after the end of the project (topics e.g. such as development and requesting of further projects). The exchange of the multipliers trained during the project leads to the activation of country-specific integration work. The gains in knowledge through the joint short-term trainings promotes the continuous application and use of the method box and material collection for daily integration work. The project results will be brought into and will be included in the development of future education offers for the individual indirect target groups.
The aim of the project was to improve the intercultural skills of the professionals in the institutions and to train them to motivate the target groups to participate in educational measures. For this purpose, methods for motivation were jointly developed and tested. They should be given the opportunity to exchange views on the barriers of the different target groups. You should familiarize yourself with the problems of integration into social life in order to have the necessary knowledge for successful work with the target groups. Specialists must be made aware of how to deal with these target groups. This is the only way for these people to open up and share their previous educational experiences
The institutions found that the target groups, such as the long-term unemployed, minorities and immigrants, often have a negative attitude towards a qualification and that the training offers for these target groups are not very attractive. In order to improve the motivation for participation of the target groups in educational measures, the professionals of the institutions must have the necessary competences to properly target these people. The key qualifications language, work, participation and self-determination were discussed. Each institution dealt intensively with one of the key qualifications and was responsible for training this topic in the short-term training. The participants, competent employees, specialists in integration work and from the adult education sector of the partner institutions, were able to expand their skills by taking part in the training courses and were trained as multipliers. With the transnational exchange during the project period, the participants got to know the target groups of the partner institutions and their integration problems. This developed an understanding of the different situations in the partner countries.