The number of people emigrating due to war, economic hardship or climate change is expected to increase in the coming years. This poses a challenge to European societies to offer refugees and migrants opportunities for their future lives. The areas of work, housing and social contacts are of central importance. Young migrants in particular need support to start vocational training and find their way into working life.
However, the number of those who drop out of school or vocational training is high. The reasons for this may be many. Among them are insufficient support of the young people, not always realistic expectations on ‘both sides’, negative or missing educational experiences of the trainees and too little knowledge as well as methodological skills of the teachers. Obviously, there is also a lack of an overall strategy to foster young people in their process of integration.
This is where the two-and-a-half-year cooperation project “EQUITY – Equal Opportunities and Inclusion in Vocational Education and Training for Young Refugees and Migrants” comes in. It involves colleagues from partner organisations from six countries (Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden) working in education, training, the social sector and public administration. Their aim is to share positive experiences of supporting refugees and migrants, to bring together good practices and synergies in order to develop approaches for a holistic pedagogical concept towards successful inclusion. To this end, they are developing various modules and a toolkit for use in the classroom. The aim is to empower young people to become actively involved in society and to build a career perspective for themselves. At the same time, teachers are strengthened in their competences to deal with diversity and aspects of integration and to learn from each other on a European level.
The jointly created educational materials will be freely accessible in seven languages as Open Educational Resources.
Partner organisations
Bezirksregierung Köln / Germany
MOBILIZING EXPERTISE AB / Sweden
Kouvolan kaupunki / City of Kouvola / Finland
LP Aimé CESAIRE / France
Cpia Napoli città 1 / Italy
FUNDACIÓN LEGARRA ETXEBESTE / Spain
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