Developing the Employability Skills of Displaced Persons Erasmus Project

Project Title

Developing the Employability Skills of Displaced Persons

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; Integration of refugees; Migrants’ issues

Project Summary

Migrants and refugees often face difficulties, and even discrimination, when searching for jobs and accessing local labour markets. The economic integration of migrants is one of the priorities of the EU’s comprehensive approach to migration. In this context entrepreneurship can open doors for the integration of migrants by overcoming these barriers. It is crucial to empower legal migrants and refugees to develop their skills and to get access to knowledge and support that can enable them to build a solid livelihood and create added value. This should include the possibility of becoming entrepreneurs, accessing the host country labour market and thus contributing to further job creation. Entrepreneurship is one of the proven ways to ensure the integration and the economic independence of migrants.

ON-D-GO – Developing the Employability Skills of Displaced Persons is an Erasmus+ project that sought to support the economic integration of migrants through the creation of a tailored migrant entrepreneurship training programme. The Project recognised that migrant populations continue to grow across Europe and there is an ongoing need to better integrate these communities into economic and social life in member states.

Considering the potential positive contributions migrant entrepreneurs can make to society, it was in the interest of partner organisations to support migrants wishing to establish their own business. It is, however, important to recognise that migrants are an extremely diverse group. As such, ON-D-GO recognised the need to appropriately inform and thoughtfully plan the learning supports in order to address the different motivations, needs, previous experiences, age, gender and life cycle stage of the target group. To address this, the Project has designed and developed a training programme and flexible support resources targeted at VET trainers seeking to develop the employability skills of nascent and start-up migrant entrepreneurs and to support their learning ‘on the go’.

Underpinning the development and delivery of our entrepreneurship programme is the use of technology. A review of current research and policies, coupled with local technology mapping with our target groups, established that technology is increasingly being used to facilitate the integration of refugees and migrants with host communities and the labour market. The EC Action Plan (2016) on the integration of third country nationals recognises the need to harness the innovative use of technology, social media and the Internet at all stages of the integration process – a need that the ON-D-GO project tried to facilitate. Technology not only provides an opportunity for refugees and migrants to maintain relationships with friends and families, it also makes it easier to receive assistance, access information and in some cases take control of their integration into the host community and develop their own learning and skills.

The ON-D-GO project used technology to deliver enterprise and entrepreneurship education not only to empower refugees and migrants to make choices about their own learning, but also to provide VET training providers and those organisations working with refugees and migrants with a cost-effective solution to deliver both formal and informal learning and skills provision. Over the 24 months of the project, we have delivered the following activities:
• Supported the continuous professional development of VET professionals and migrant support workers in the fields of migrant integration education, entrepreneurship and mobile learning
• Completed a training needs analysis with refugees in terms of enterprise learning and skills development and the responses required to address these needs. Once established these needs were benchmarked against the EU Entre-Comp Framework
• Mapped the ways in which technology is currently used to deliver enterprise leaning and skills development, in order to identify what works well and what works less well, using the prior expertise of project partners
• Developed an enterprise learning and skills curriculum for refugees and piloted the delivery of the curriculum using different methodologies with 243 migrants and refugees across Europe
• Created a library of case studies documenting how enterprising learning and skills development has assisted refugees to effectively integrate into host communities and the labour market
• Trained 80 VET professionals and trainers working with refugees to enhance their understanding of, and develop their capacity in using technology to deliver enterprise learning and skills development to refugees.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 273707,5 Eur

Project Coordinator

MEATH COMMUNITY RURAL AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT PARTNERSHIP LIMITED & Country: IE

Project Partners

• BEST INSTITUT FUR BERUFSBEZOGENE WEITERBILDUNG UND PERSONALTRAINING GMBH
• VYTAUTO DIDZIOJO UNIVERSITETAS
• OXFAM ITALIA ONLUS
• CENTRE FOR ADVANCEMENT OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY LTD-CARDET
• Small Firms Enterprise Development Initiative Limited