SMILE - Supporting Migrant Inclusion In Lifelong Learning and Education The project's main objective is to support teachers, migrant communities, learning support staff and and adult education institutes in promoting migrant inclusion in adult education. The project develops training and educational resources that can be used to train migrant educators and teachers to work in cooperation to promote the inclusion of migrants in education. Research among migrant organisations indicates that sometimes migrants can experience great difficulties in understanding the local culture and navigating the local system of education in the place where they live. These difficulties are harder for persons facing poverty and social exclusion, who struggle to meet their basic needs, and usually lack the resources for stimulating learning, and depend on privileged members of their community. Even sometimes financially stable migrants can experience poor social integration. Local programmes and colleges also find themselves sometimes to deal with the culturally diverse classroom. Although the experience can be enriching, many teachers find they are unexposed, unprepared and unequipped to address the challenges of cultural diversity. Inadequate policies in relation to integration and education of migrants also impedes teachers, educators, school administrators, and migrant communities in finding coordinated, innovative solutions. Therefore this project will explore these gaps and develops innovative tools to address these important needs. The project includes four NGOs : FSM, Malta, which supports the integration of vulnerable and empowers migrant leadership through the Third Country National Network in Malta (TSN Malta); IFALL, Sweden, which works on integration, including that of migrant communities within municipalities; IAS, Slovenia, which has strong advocacy networks swith diaspora organisations and government Ministries in Slovenia; and CARDET, Cyprus, an NGO working on producing online innovative digital resources for education and inclusion. The project will include research activities that will be used to gather information from teachers, migrant peers, learning support staff, policy makers and school administrators, and to find gaps in inclusion strategies and policies in all the partner countries. Research will also include learning visits and joint partner training events, as well as online research to find best practices and resources in other EU countries that address the research gaps. Through a dissemination conference the project will discuss the research findings and best practices with relevant stakeholders, and acquire feedback important for the development of intellectual outputs. These outputs will be developed and piloted with the diverse target groups, after which they will be improved and used to give training to teachers, migrant educators and migrant parents and relatives. Additionaly a final conference will share all project outputs and findings with a broader group of stakeholders. The project uses and inclusive, cross sectorial methodology and a bottom up approach, engaging migrant participants in all stages of the project, and with teachers, NGOs and adult educators establishing connections and relationships that improve coordinated efforts on the subject. A training course will be developed to train migrant peers as mentors and cultural mediators, bridging the gap between the school and the migrant community, while an informal training course will be developed to train migrants how to support each other to learn, as well as to use cooperative strategies with teachers in order to facilitate inclusion in the classroom. A blended 3-ects study unit will be developed for graduate teachers, and an online portal will be available through an interactive online resource. The project will increase knowledge on methodologies and pedagogies for inclusion in adult education, and will change negative behaviours and attitudes towards inclusion. It will also increase action and agency of teachers, migrant peers and migrant learners to promote inclusion and to support migrants to learn, and to address barriers to such inclusion. In the long term the project contributes to social inclusion, active citizenship, peace building and cross cultural cooperation in partner countries in the European Union, and in the world.

Context of ProjectFollowing the OECD paper (2017) above 1.6 million of migrants families have a resident permission in EU during 2015. Despite the all the attempts and activities that have been made for migrants integrations, yet little is known on the specific challenges they face. While there is a continuous development of programmes that are associated with migration and social inclusion, however the majority does not share a holistic approach to evaluate their quality in terms of methods, values and perspectives that will offer a deep understanding of the migrants’ needs. These programs face the challenge of disintegration not only in their quality but also inside their procedures. As a consequence, they turn out as single-dimensional that obsolete methods and processes. Consequently, they alienate the person and its singularity and underpin an inconsistent way in migrants support.The challenge and at the same time the antidote lies at the understanding and embodying of the cultural background, the value system and principles these people carry on from their countries and the gaps that they face with the hosting country.The above provocations demonstrate an imperative need to support cooperation schemes in migration and social inclusion fields. The exchange of good practices among migration and social inclusion providers will give the practitioners and also the decision makers the chance to explore innovative ideas. HOPE will open the discussion among stakeholders to exchange opinions, concerns and questions in order to develop their practices, procedure and abilities for migrant education.ObjectivesO.1. Perform study visits, as a guide of effective communication, on leading migration and social inclusion providers in partner countries to investigate their structures, and exchange practices.O.2. Understanding and exploring the procedures, practices and methods that other agencies exercise for the social inclusion, and the education of migrants. O.3. Development of an efficiency and steady consortium is the preparatory work in order to achieve the smooth implementation of the project and achieve its objectives and aims.O.4. Encouragement for the development of Open Educational Recourses and WBL Schemes for the engagement and training of migrants.O.5. Support new approached to reduce inequalities in access and engagement with digital technologies.O.6. Enhancement of the quality learning opportunities that is tailor made to migrants needs.Number and Profile of ParticipantsDuring the implementation of the project more than 200 people will be directly involved. Partners from the participating organizations (1 per partner) will take part during the implementation of 4 Transnational Meetings. Furthermore, during the organization of 6 LTTA staff members from the participants’ organizations (4 per partner) will be involved in the staff training events. All this participants will come in touch directly will a lot of other organizations and agencies during the duration of the programme.The activities that HOPE includes:•4 Transnational Meetings, where 1 individual per partner organization will participate, in order to establish a strong implementation management team and good resource management. •6 Short-term joint staff training events where 4 participants per partner organization will be involved in staff training sessions.Results R.1. Participants of HOPE will have the opportunity to come in touch with persons coming from different European cultures, civilizations and adapt different practices.R.2. A stronger partnership will be developed between the major migration organization, creating a wider and more specialized network.R.3. Development of a “Knowledge Triangle” where an interaction between research, innovation and education will be provided. R.4. Understanding of structures of leading migration and social inclusion providers and exchange of good practices, through the implementation of study visits and among Germany, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta and Greece giving the opportunity to practitioners as well as policy makers to investigate innovative ideas and also share practices and knowledge. R.5. Enhancement of migration and social inclusion training and education, through the up skilling of employees and trainers in order to provide better services against the new challenges and progressively develop the youth systems.R.6. Encouragement the development of Innovative Training Courses for Transversal Skills based on the “skills ecosystem”.R.7. A powerful tool as a platform will be designed in order to connect the executives, foster the exchange of good practices and include a flexible learning program. R.8. A new WBL scheme is going to be encouraged that is going to form a long-term alliance with VET providers at a national and transnational level.R.9. A sustainable exchange of resources among social inclusion providers.

The underpinning context for the MEDLIT project is that Media can facilitate the integration of refugees and migrants by providing access to information about available education, health or other services, about political and administrative information on the host country, and support systems/organizations available. They can also support the learning of the host country language, looking for a job, getting qualifications recognized. The project’s objectives were to contribute to the integration of refugee, asylum seeking and migrant women, who face a greater risk of social exclusion (double discrimination), in 6 EU Member States (Austria, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Malta and the UK) with large numbers of refugees/asylum seekers and migrants, by building their competences, knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to access, interpret, use and/or produce information and other media content, in the context of the internet and social media, and in a safe and responsible manner. Project aims included: enhancing the media and digital competences of low-skilled/low-qualified refugee, asylum seeking & migrant women through innovative learning tools, and encouraging low-skilled/low-qualified refugee, asylum seeking and migrant women to develop and upgrade their media and digital literacy skills through effective outreach-awareness raising. This was achieved through the implementation of the following activities: 1. Methodological approach & framework for media and digital literacy skills building 1.1. Identification of current media and digital literacy skills and the associated needs/gaps of low-skilled/low-qualified refugee, asylum seeking and migrant women 1.2. Development of skills building framework for developing refugee, asylum seeking and migrant women’s media and digital literacy skills 2. Online training tool for building media and digital literacy skills 2.1. Development of online training tool 2.2. Pilot implementation of online training 3. Peer-to-peer awareness raising methodology and campaigns 3.1. Development of peer-to-peer awareness raising methodology 3.2. Provision of training to refugee, asylum seeking and migrant women 3.3. Implementation of peer-to-peer awareness raisingAt local level the project built on the competences of low-skilled/low-qualified refugee/asylum seeking and migrant women enabling them to access, interpret, use and/or produce information and other media content, in the context of the internet and social media, thus enhancing the use of media by the women for more advanced purposes such as looking for a job, learning the language of the host country, accessing information about available services or political/administrative information, and promoting their integration into the relevant networks, socio-economic activities and institutions of the host countries. In this way, poverty (of access to employment routes) and social exclusion was reduced.Migrants/refugees associations and organizations working for the integration of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants (especially women), were equipped with new methodologies and tools so that they could provide improved and more targeted services to their target groups.Relevant local, regional or national authorities had access to improved methodologies and tools which were mainstreamed in the local, regional or national integration and social inclusion practices and/or education systems to ensure that refugees and migrants can actively participate and contribute in EU societies.By developing the skills of low-skilled/low-qualified refugee/asylum seeking and migrant women, the project contributed to the Erasmus+ Programme objectives, the objectives of the Action Plan on the integration of third country nationals and of the New Skills Agenda for Europe. It achieved further impact whereby women who had taken the course gained employment (in Malta) and women in Palermo produced and published a recipe book with their new-found digital skills. The availability of the developed methodologies and online training tool in several languages, as well as their wide dissemination across authorities and stakeholders at local/regional/national and European level promoted the impact of the project on EU Member States integration and education policies and the tool is being considered for use in other educational and NGO environments.

The main purpose of the BLEND-IN project was the realization of a multilingual orientation tool-kit, usable througha mobile application (APP), intended for young asylum seekers / refugees recently arrived in the country ofhospitality. The APP should have contained information related to issues such as job search, access toservices, regulations, etc. This, in order to facilitate their integration into the new community, support their empowerment eactive citizenship.The project has reached this goal because it has actually implemented a mobile application,free downloadable for Android systems, intended for young asylum seekers and newly arrived refugees in Italy, Greece,Cyprus and Malta - the countries represented by the partnership.The contents of the APP were selected by the partners through a preliminary activity of needs analysis (both throughreview of the literature that through the direct involvement of end users through interviews and focus groups, iwhose results are condensed in the IO1), structured for digital use, translated and tested with the target group firstof the final release of the APP. The tool is also accompanied by a manual that illustrates the potential uses frompart of the sector operators, also realized through consultations with professionals and volunteersBUSINESS.The secondary objective of the project was to increase awareness among operators and stakeholders of the needs ofspecific guidance of the target group of young asylum seekers. Also in this case the objective can beconsidered achieved, as the dissemination activities - as a whole - have made it possible to achieveover 40,000 people and the feedback collected were extremely positive.