CONTEXT According to Common Basic Principles/EU initiatives in the field of integration, “Basic knowledge of the host society’s language, history, and institutions is indispensable to integration; enabling immigrants to acquire this basic knowledge is essential to successful integration" and "Efforts in education are critical to preparing immigrants, and particularly their descendants, to be more successful and more active participants in society". The Erasmus+ Program aims at promoting equity and inclusion by facilitating the access to learners with disadvantaged backgrounds and fewer opportunities compared to their peers, “.https://ec.europa.eu/migrant-integration/the-eu-and- integration/eu-actions-to-make-integration-work The educational tracks of those who receive residence permits should be expedited by lowering the threshold for integration training and the training following it. "(quote from the report " The educational tracks and integration of immigrants – problematic areas and proposals for actions") PROJECT OBJECTIVES The main goal of the project InclusionApp is to help RI&AS (refugees, immigrants and asylum seekers) learn the language & the culture of the host country through a mobile serious game and ood practices against social exclusion through a a Collaborative e-learning platform. Specifically the aims of the project are twofold: (a) The Design, Implementation and Evaluation of a Mobile Serious Game for learning the language & the culture of the host country (InclusionApp mobile game) for RI&AS (b) The creation of a Collaborative e-learning portal with good practices against social exclusion of RI&AS. SERIOUS GAME EVALUATION Once the software development is finished we will run a large scale trial in which we will involve at least 200 RI&AS (refugees, immigrants and asylum seekers) and observe their learning success and most important their inclusion in the host country with the help of our mobile serious game. We will then finilize our mobile game and share it on an EU-wide scale. Scientific publications will be published to renowned international scientific journals & conferences with the results of the evaluation. The OPEN SOURCE ACCESS to all project outputs will be guaranteed for at least 5 years after project end. PARTNER ORGANISATIONS This initiative gathers 5 partners from Poland, Cyprus, Italy, UK and Greece. WYZSZA SZKOLA EKONOMII I INNOWACJI W LUBLINIE (Poland): University of Economics and Innovation in Lublin (WSEI) is a non-state higher education institution, funded in 2001. Welcome Home International (Belgium): Non-profit organisation providing encouragement, education, and assistance to refugees during their integration. INNOVATION FRONTIERS (Greece): An educational technology & research company expert in the design, implementation and evaluation of educational software. Eurospeak Language Schools Ltd (UK): A private English language school, accredited by the British Council, Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI) and are a UKVI licensed Tier 2 General and Tier 4 General of the points based system. Tropicalastral Lda (Portugal): A private adult education provider and translation company, focused mainly on corporate clients in the Algarve area providing private executive business language lessons.
Given that there is a need to socially support RI&AS and to help them learn the language and culture of the host country through the use of a mobile phone, the InclusionApp project focused on two main objectives: 1) Creating a mobile game to learn the language and culture of the host country. 2) Designing an open e-learning platform containing useful content to acquire basic knowledge needed to integrate and adapt to a new place of residence.
Migration has been an EU priority for many years, so the main objective of the project is to help RI&AS (refugees, migrants and asylum seekers) learn the language and culture of the host country and promote equality and integration. Undoubtedly, one of the main priorities of immigrants upon arrival in a new country is a comprehensive knowledge of the local language and a detailed understanding of the new environment. In most countries, refugees have the opportunity to study in government-sponsored courses. However, due to financial and cultural barriers, some of these opportunities are often limited, creating a need for non-formal education. Refugees in European countries have digital skills and use smartphones to keep in touch with family online and to look for opportunities in a new place of residence. With all this in mind, the InclusionApp project, as a result of cooperation between 5 partner institutions to ensure long-term education, created open educational resources: a mobile game (IO1) and an e-learning platform (IO2) responding to the needs of social exclusion and RI&AS support.