Inter-related objectives: S.O.1: Understanding Barriers: We aimed to comprehend the challenges and obstacles that long-term unemployed adults, especially migrants, confront when trying to access educational pathways leading to the labor market in IE, DE, CY, and to boost their ability and motivation to address and surmount the identified barriers, equipping them with tools and methodologies suited for diverse learners. S.O.2: Innovation and Sustainability, we looked to create and integrate pioneering and enduring practices and tools that cater specifically to migrants, ensuring their seamless transition into the labor market. This was supported by developing national and comparative indexes on innovative practices, we aimed to consolidate our findings and share them broadly for replication and adaptation. S.O.3: a transversal objective was Capacity Building. Through our diverse consortium we enabled the intensive capacity building via exchange and mobility of the five consortium partners, laying the groundwork for 'New Pathways' of work locally and transnationally.
Our consortium consists of traditional and non-traditional Adult Education actors. We believed by bringing together service providers (P1), migrant-led NGOs (P2, P3) and educational NGOs (P4, P5), we could create space over 18-months and 280 days of mobility and exhcnage, for 'New Pathways' to emerge. While diverse in backgrounds, our partners shared the same values, and looked to act inequalities and barriers faced by migrant communities, especially long-term unemployed adults, in accessing quality education and employment opportunities. Drawing on decades of experience within our consortium, and informed by Eurostat data highlighting the employment disparities, our motivation stems from a need to bridge these gaps in accessibility and inclusivity. Our observations indicate significant challenges for migrants, particularly in language acquisition, recognition of diplomas, and cultural integration, which often culminate in socioeconomic marginalization. We looked to empower the consortium's NGOs, particularly those inexperienced in coordinating KA2 projects, by facilitating exchange of best practices, promoting inter-organizational learning, and enhancing capacities for more impactful interventions in our future work.