The need for this project is driven by the vast number of migrants who are travelling to Europe, fleeing war, oppression or poverty. Over 6.5 million migrants and refugees have crossed into six EU nations by land and sea at the end of 2018, according to the UN Flüchtlingshilfe e.V.. Besides the problematic refugee situation, unprivileged and disadvantaged social classes like NEETS (Not in education, employment or training), handicapped people or social marginal groups like homosexuals still tend to have hindered access to the employment market and to social acceptance/ promotion with large variations across the EU (EU "Effective Outreach to NEETS", 2018). The goal of this project is therefore to facilitate the entry into the labour market for foremost migrants and refugees, but also NEETS and other unprivileged groups who oftenly lack social recognition and economic participation.The main aim is to create an international online compendium and dictionary for migrants, refugees, NEETS and other unprivileged groups in (preparation to) education, employment or vocational training, which can be used via phone or computer. The compendium will contain primarily translations of fundamental (technical) terms and key words for different professions such as gardening, mechatronics, construction, carpentry, painting, administration or domestic economy into various languages, that are most commonly used by refugees and migrants in their own and in our countries. The online compendium/ vocation orientation tool will in addition to the translation service also cointain job descriptions and vocation insights (relevant to the specific country), the application conditions, the qualifications required as well as (if recommendable) information on the system of taxation, the specifications of the contract agreement, the rights and duties during an employment and advanced training possibilities after the apprenticeship. The idea is providing an online job orientation tool that is a mixture of both, translation and learning/ orientation. This way we enable disadvantaged groups (migrants, NEETS, handicapped) and receiving apprenticeship offering companies, job centres, authorities and volunteers to communicate with each other on a far more effective, job based level. Apprenticeship offering organizations, job centres, labour companies and education services (VET centers) will be better able to communicate with and give orientation to our target group (unprivileged groups) by: 1. Clarifying the most basic and fundamental job requirements and qualification and by that offering understanding and orientation. 2. Being able to describe the needed job information in different languages including the mother tongues of migrants 3. Establishing a common communication ground between trainees and trainers, pupils and tutors, learners and instructors and therefore offering solid and stable integration. The key results will be: 1 A web app and website usable on both Android and Apple phones to access the language and job tool. This will encorporate learning quizes, videos and as well as a unique collaboration which enables instantaneous and fully flexible translation between all 8 languages covered in the project and the 5+ choosen employment sectors. Users will be able to personalise their own vocabulary library and vocational area through making a favourites area for quick reference and practise, adding and subtracting words and phrases as needed as well as learning through a quiz/ test function. 2 Case studies and videos to help with employment barriers and interviews with both benficiaries and employers. These will cover key interview questions and expectations from the employers and exoperiences and hints from workers. These will cover all the employment sectors choosen. 3 Employment information covering basic employment under contract, self employement rules and start up information. This will allow beneficiaries to see the employment options available. 4 We expect 2000 users of the project by the end of the project funding, after this the partners will have agreed a dissemination plan to ensure sustainability. We will survey individual users to enable us to test an increase in confidence in employability. 5 The project will build on the partnership between the language experts, the support and volunteer agencies (to ensure the material is suitable and useful), sector employers (to check the material is what they require for employees) and the ICT provider to enable the most user friendly and flexible tool to be tailored to the needs of all users. The tool will allow two way translation and learning of key words and phrases needed, and suggest and build phrases using the selected words . This will include categories for all the vocational jobs we are focused on. 6 200 individuals as a minimum will test and validate the application and provide feedback which will be encoprated into the final version.
The problem of language and communication is one of the main causes for the poor inclusion of vulnerable groups in the world of work (see Eurostat 2020). Language is the basis for the creation of social reality (see Berger/Luckmann 1969) and is therefore at the forefront of dealing with integration challenges for people with refugee experience. Although there are countless dictionaries and learning applications for mobile devices, the project partners were unable to find any learning and language aids that focus on the topic of vocational training. Here, a societal need had been identified in addition to an internal one. The project wanted to combine the aspects of learning and technology in the simplest and most intelligent way possible. Consequently, the tool was to be used on a mobile phone with as little effort as possible. With the help of this language aid, it should be made easier for young professionals with refugee experience to find their way around in their new job or training and to be empowered to communicate in a basic way. Conversely, those responsible should also be encouraged to use the tool for communication.
The highly topical issue of integrating refugees into the world of work continues to be a social challenge. After the large-scale flight movement in 2015 and currently again in 2022 with refugees from Ukraine, the need for integration into working life will continue to exist in the coming years. The need for the project arose primarily from an internal needs assessment. At the beginning of their training, the young emigrant trainees in our various occupational fields, such as kitchen and service, office and administration or sales, were faced with the challenge of finding their way linguistically into the new occupational field. An easy-to-use language aid with a vocational focus was identified as a means of orientation and support. After a similar need was also reported by the partner institutions, the common idea was soon established to produce such language support in the form of a follow-up project to the already successfully implemented Compass project (2018-2020) in the Erasmus+ programme.