Antalya, in Turkey, is a western Mediterranean city that hosts nearly 100 thousand regular immigrants from 170 nations. The number of immigrants in Antalya is higher than 22 out of 32 countries, including Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and 28 EU members, according to the migration report statistics published by Eurostat in March 2019 based on 2017 numbers. Antalya Provincial Directorate of Migration Management is a public institution that carries out administrative procedures of immigrants locally. The most intense and first contact of immigrants with public institutions takes place in our Directorate. It is observed that during the procedures of immigrants, there are some communication difficulties between employees and immigrants, and these difficulties cannot be managed professionally by employees. Based on these difficulties, the websites of the immigration offices, serving in Europe, were examined to get information about the situation there. The negative experiences of immigrants in these institutions were monitored through the comments made by immigrants on the internet. It has been observed that the common expressions included in the comments of immigrants in different cities, and even countries focus on concepts such as racism, hatred, discrimination, impatience, ethnocentrism, and arrogance. We think that the sensitivity and stereotypes of immigrants living in a foreign country are effective in describing the attitudes and behaviors, faced by immigrants, with such harsh concepts. On the other hand, for employees, the non-use of intercultural communication factors and the low awareness of “being foreign” psychology are effective in their adverse interactions with immigrants. In order to minimize these adverse effects, there is a need for the employees to be developed in topics such as intercultural communication, alternative communication channels, specific immigrant behavior, crisis management, reducing bias, and changing negative attitudes. In line with these needs, the target group of the project is a total of 20 people who will be trained as trainers under the title of “effective communication with immigrants” at Roma Sapienza University. Participants are selected among people working in institutions serving in the field of migration in Antalya, Helsinki, and Satu Mare. With the COMMIGRATION Project, the followings are aimed at: - Establishing a global strategy for communication with immigrants, - To contribute positively to the social adaptation processes of immigrants by increasing the share of intercultural communication factors in communication between immigrants and employees, - Providing employees the opportunity to experience the concept of “being a foreigner,” - Establishing a specific, operational and innovative training model for employees, - Increasing the institutional capacity by training of the trainers who dominate the terminology and improving the competencies of the employees to gain the ability for evaluating previous knowledge and skills, and using innovative solutions, - Long-term effects, sustainable cooperation, and experience sharing with participating institutions, - Improving the quality of the services provided to immigrants, The results of the project will have not only local but also regional, national, and international impacts and effectiveness, in terms of the needs and nature of the issue.
The quantitative goal of the project was both to reduce complaints received by our Directorate by addressing communication challenges faced by both foreigners and to enhance service satisfaction. Our qualitative goal involved improving service quality to prevent immigrants from developing prejudices against the community due to public administration services, thereby fostering their openness to integration programs aligned with Turkey's general policies. To achieve these objectives, our foremost priority was to raise awareness about the unique international dimension of the services provided by public officers serving foreigners. As the institution directly responsible for these services, our primary focus was to train other public officers, accomplished by training internal trainers within our directorate with C1. Furthermore, upon examining Erasmus+ projects, we realized that most initiatives addressing migrants focused on refugees and asylum-seekers. Recognizing the absence of projects specifically addressing regular migrants, their communication challenges, and integration into society, we aimed to be among the first to address this issue and realize it in Europe with the support of our foreign partners.
Our desire to realize the COMMIGRATION arose from the need to prevent the impressions developed by foreigners receiving services from a public office, due to communication difficulties with public officer, from turning into prejudices attributed to the public. This is aimed at facilitating the integration of migrants into society and its rules. To analyze the complaints submitted to our directorate by foreigners with communication difficulties and understand the reflections of this problem in Europe, we examined the websites of similar migration offices providing services in this field, as well as platforms where migrants interact between eachother. When this taking into account the hundreds of comments and noting that these comments align on a common denominator even across different countries and cities, we realized that the communication problems experienced are not only a local or national problem but also a regional and global one. Foreigners coming from different cultures, perceive the staff they interact with in a public office as the "face of the public." Therefore, it was a need for us to develop training and strategies to ensure that public officers act with more sensitivity and care than routine communication demands.