Upskilling Paths for Social Integration of Migrants Erasmus Project

Project Title

Upskilling Paths for Social Integration of Migrants

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 adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Gender equality / equal opportunities; Inclusion – equity; Teaching and learning of foreign languages

Project Summary

Although largely beneficial, migration can have many constraints. I.e. restrictive social norms or laws, gender or racial discrimination, or gender‐specific vulnerabilities. Such things limit the opportunities and benefits of migrants. When women migrate, it can improve their self-efficacy, human capital, and autonomy, as well as their authority and worth in their families and communities. Traditional norms can be adjusted by providing women with access to education and economic opportunities and the introduction of more equitable social norms, which can improve women’s rights and access to resources. According to UNHCR Review of Gender Equality in Operations, 2016, concludes that despite the existing efforts targeting women and girls in these contexts, the need to invest in their protection and empowerment is still extremely high. According to the report, women face extra layers of barriers to find sustainable income-generating activities. So, despite the potential for improving their lives there are many disadvantages and risks that women face as compared to men. Although these efforts are praiseworthy, we still see the recurring problem of women in migrant communities in situations of vulnerability, and a “vicious cycle” of cultural/racial stereotypes reinforcement, resulting in a perpetual cycle of poverty.. and poverty for women has close links to vulnerability and falling victim to economical violence, which is a major contributor to democratic inequalities.

The UPSIM consortium consists of partners from Sweden, Denmark, Portugal, Czech Republic, and France (Guadeloupe). The trans-sectoral nature of the consortium, i.e. Municipality, NGO, private organisations specialised in language acquisition, pedagogy and didactics, and active in the field of migrant integration; provides the project with a multifaceted perspective on shared issues. Project management will be led by IKF and will run throughout the project to monitor / ensure that the project is on track, achieves the aims and objectives, and delivers the planned outputs. The consortium will also have a designated quality assurance board, to ensure the quality of deliverables are up to par.

The UPSIM project proposes to develop resources that provide migrant/minority women, residing in the EU, with a suite of tools that enable them to study non-formal competence (learning to learn) and the language skills required to reach educational goals. This will be achieved by the development of a concept framework, locating the main points of interest and providing insight into the situations of women in the partner countries. This knowledge will be unfolded through the development of a rapid language acquisition and learning to learn tool, which will be used directly by migrant women.

The project has a dual focus on providing the main target group with necessary support. So, on one side, we have resources that can be used directly by the Target Group, but we will also work with the people around them, to support our target group in the transition phases. For this reason, we will develop a successful integration manual, which provides social workers, volunteers, mentors, and others working with our target group with the skills and tools that enable them to support women in reaching educational goals and working with creating supportive networks. All resources will be presented via an online learning platform, where access to acquisition of knowledge will be available to all, through multimodal audio-visual learning scenarios, and in-service training courses for the creation of mentoring circles.

During the project funded period, we will hold 4 transnational meetings, a joint learning event, and multiplier events. The materials will be developed in international teams who will test content through testing workshops, and feedback sessions and adapt the final results based on feedback from target groups. Working in transnational and trans-sectoral groups ensures that a problem is seen from more than one view point. The non-homogenous composition of our consortium ensures that we see topics from different perspectives; i.e. across cultures, sectors, and professional areas of expertise.

The results and impact of the project outputs are inspired by the Sustainable Development Goals 5 and 8, which refer to the wellbeing of female migrants and refugees. We envisage an impact showing more women gaining the language and learning-to-learn skills that will enable them to embark on their journeys along existing Upskilling Pathways; and the people working with this target group will gain the attitudes, skills, and competences necessary to support minority migrant women in making real life changes, contribute to democratic equality for minority women, and remove barriers that are caused by situations of vulnerability.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 294370 Eur

Project Coordinator

Internationella Kvinnoföreningen & Country: SE

Project Partners

• Spolek PELICAN, z.s.
• Aidlearn, Consultoria em Recursos Humanos Lda.
• Coneqt
• COPPET Maryse