We Are One Erasmus Project

Project Title

We Are One

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: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Integration of refugees; Inclusion – equity

Project Summary

The EU is facing a demographic crisis, with a foreseen return to job growth across Europe over the coming years, in part due to improvement in the economic outlook, coupled with a record number of asylum applications. For this reason, increased opportunities need to be created, by providing a different route to success for the future workforce, and due to rising numbers of unemployed young adults, especially among migrants and refugees, it is imperative that a new way is found to change the downward spiral.
EU states can benefit from the influx of refugees. They will be a necessity in the years to come, to help fill this growing gap between young able workers and an ageing workforce. However, this will not come on its own; a clearly defined strategy for successful integration needs to be in place to meet these objectives.
To address this issue, the project created a platform for continuous language improvement through CLIL, e. g. a method of teaching a second language as a medium of classroom instruction. Through this method, unemployed, low skilled migrants and refugees can study the subjects of their real interest, i.e. cultural adaptation and work-related content. The goal of the project is to broaden the knowledge of groups of low skilled, adult migrants and refugees, in terms of civic participation and basic value orientation of the hosting society – all this while improving their knowledge of the host country language.
The project includes partners from 4 countries; Denmark, Portugal, Czech Republic, and Ireland. The consortium is made up of partners from NGOs active in the areas of integration, inclusion and social work, companies involved in integration, education materials and content developers, learning platform developers, teaching and training of unemployed refugees, experts in CLIL method, and teaching/training organisations.
The consortium developed materials mainly for language schools, teaching the host country language to refugees, and companies interested in participating in an integration program. The materials consisted of a WeR1 project handbook, including theories on integration, pattern breaking, CLIL, and TBL. To create a bridge between theory and praxis, a toolkit coupled with audiovisual learning scenarios was also created. These materials provide teachers and trainers with ready to use tools and real life illustrations of how to use the methods in the classroom or training. The tools are used to create learning units for refugees and migrants, where work related language with built in language scaffolding can be studied. Finally, the consortium also produced a course guide. The course guide assists teachers and trainers and other interested parties in the running of WeR1 training courses for exploitation purposes.
During the project, the consortium ran pilot workshops, the Multiplier Events for 30 people, and host events, where teachers/trainers were invited to participate, and make use of our materials in their own praxis. A final conference also took place, where professionals from these fields were invited, along with policy makers and other interested parties. In the total, 66 people attended the Final Conference and showed their interest in all our materials.
With this project and the results that were produced, we wish to develop the necessary basic labour market language skills, inter-cultural competence and life skills needed to adapt to a European labour market and society of the 21st century. We created tools for teachers, trainers involved in training refugee and migrant groups to successfully enter the job market. Our project doesn’t only teach a language, but create a bridge between language, culture and work.
The potential long term effects will be creating a methodology and approach for municipalities, language schools and companies to make use of, for successful integration strategies. We envisage that using the CLIL method to teach work related language, will increase successful and faster integration into the labour market.
Including companies in our target groups also create an incentive for companies to open their doors and create opportunities for unemployed refugees and migrants.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 230129 Eur

Project Coordinator

JRS PORTUGAL – SERVICO JESUITA AOS REFUGIADOS ASSOCIACAO HUMANITARIA & Country: PT

Project Partners

• Conradh na Gaeilge
• Popular Jump Unipessoal LDA
• Spolek PELICAN, z.s.
• Coneqt
• INSTITUTO PADRE ANTÓNIO VIEIRA