Vitality Interventions for Migrants Erasmus Project

Project Title

Vitality Interventions for 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 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Health and wellbeing; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Integration of refugees

Project Summary

Staying in good health, adopting healthy life styles and being informed about the health system of the host country as well as having confidence to make use of it are pre-requisites of successful integration of refugees and migrants into their European host societies. But clearly, there is a lack of consideration in the existing integration programmes of the specific challenges migrants face with regard to health issues. Well-being, poverty, employment and legal status are factors that have crucial impact on the health of refugees and migrants as well as on the exertion of their right to access quality healthcare. Although migrant women share many integration challenges with migrant men, their exclusion risks are even more pronounced, because of simultaneous gender, racial and class discrimination.
In the initial research phase this was further investigated. The VIM research delivered important details to understand the range of difficulties migrants face when they seek to access health services. The Research Report contains, among others, the results of 60 expert interviews about health, learning needs of migrant adults, most relevant health education topics and suitable methodological approaches likely to succeed with hard-to-reach target groups.

In this context adult education has an important role to play. While it is very difficult to get those migrants who would need it most involved in health information classes, adult education should try to work with these target groups where they can be found, i.e. in integration, education and training programmes on other subjects.
VIM addresses adult educators and training providers working with migrants and refugees in various contexts. The project substantially seeks to extend the professional competence of these educators to address health issues in their teaching, without being health education experts themselves with the ultimate aim to promote and improve the health literacy among migrants.

For this purpose, the VIM consortium has developed a collection of small learning activities on relevant health issues. These can be used by trainers and educators in various courses to address specific health issues in six relevant topic areas. For each of these areas information and concrete training instructions are provided. These enable educators to apply the activities with little preparation and to respond to spontaneous needs in the group, as well as to consciously address specific topics.

The training activities are supplemented by educational guidelines that serve as a source of inspiration for trainers to include health-related topics in their courses, without losing sight of different cultural conceptions of body and health and sensitive factors in migrant health education such as religion and gender.

The training materials together with background information, educational resources, contacts and links to stakeholders and national health initiatives for migrants are presented on the VIM online Hub. Another feature of the Hub is a forum for trainers to exchange experiences.

The VIM approach and training materials were piloted in national pilots to verify whether they are practice-fit and feasible. The 6-month piloting phase involved 55 educators and almost 500 migrants and refugees. Their experience and feedback are presented in the Experience Report. The report provides an overview of the learning outcomes gained through the national pilots, and describes the main points of feedback. It also highlights the achievements, successes, challenges met, solutions found, and recommendations for future users. Although the actual impact cannot be measured within the timeframe of a two-year Erasmus plus project, the feedback from the pilot trials has given the consortium confirmation that they have developed a valuable source of health literacy activities for migrants. VIM activities can be used by various organisations and individuals to facilitate the integration of migrants/refugees in Europe and improve their lifestyles.

As an incentive the VIM consortium has developed the VIM Quality Badge – a tangible label designed for trainers and training providers who have integrated elements of health prevention and health education into training courses with migrants according to the VIM approach and want to show their commitment to others. The badge aims to add to the sustainability of the project at European level and shall attract adult educators and training providers to adopt the VIM approach in their contexts. During the project lifetime it was awarded to all organisations that participated in the pilots.

The project was implemented by a partnership consisting of education, health, migration and gender experts from five major migration entry and host countries (DE, AT, DK, IT, GR). The partners have made a joint effort to spread the information about the VIM offer, trying to reach as many potential users and beneficiaries as possible through their networks.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 296274 Eur

Project Coordinator

BUPNET BILDUNG UND PROJEKT NETZWERKGMBH & Country: DE

Project Partners

• SOSU OSTJYLLAND
• CESIE
• KENTRO MERIMNAS OIKOGENEIAS KAI PAIDIOU
• DIE BERATER UNTERNEHMENSBERATUNGS GESELLSCHAFT MBH
• MAGENTA CONSULTORIA PROJECTS SL