Language As a Bridge
PROJECT CONTEXT
The growing flow of refugees to the EU countries makes the process of their social inclusion a high priority. According to the latest figures published by the European Commission (March 2017), in 2015 and 2016 the EU received 2.5 million asylum applications.
Knowledge of the language of host country is considered as one of the most crucial elements for successful social inclusion and as the main lever to increase the newly arrived refugees’ level of self-reliance and participation.
Without a good knowledge of the host country language, it is almost impossible to integrate into the local culture, get into the labor market and socialize with members of other communities. Therefore, without implementing a proper inclusion policy, it will increase the possibility of having a growing number of marginalized people, excluded from every form of social activities and labor market. Thus, eliminating all forms of intercultural dialogue leads to increase in incidents of racial discrimination and intolerance. Besides, this project has been built upon some of the recommendations following the report of the European Parliament on “refugees: social inclusion and integration into the labor market” (2015/2321[INI]) with particular focus on “[…] solutions providing multilingual information on opportunities involving formal and non-formal education, vocational training, work placement and volunteering for migrants, refugees and asylum seekers; calls, therefore, for such services to be extended.”
PROJECT OBJECTIVES
Today, according to the 2015/2321(INI), 24.4% of the total population in the EU live under risk of poverty and social exclusion, and almost 10% face severe material deprivation.
The overall objective of Language As a Bridge “LAB” project, then, is to contribute in reducing this data enhancing the social inclusion of the newly arrived adult refugees by improving their language knowledge.
We want to help on reaching this overall objective by increasing the efficiency of twenty (20) adult educators (specific objective) in language education of newly-arrived adult refugees. The twenty (20) educators will be trained with an innovative guideline on language education (main project result) that will be developed by the LAB consortium.
NUMBERS AND PROFILES OF THE PARTICIPANTS
At the activities of LAB project will be involved twenty (20) adult educators during the training. These, in addition to being formed through the innovative guideline, will have to assess the real innovation of the guideline at the end of training.
These participants will be selected by consortium members at the local level. As for the selection criteria, there will be the activities that they perform for having that accomplished. If they are related to the project activities and the added value, participants are able to achieve the result. In the specific case, the participants will have to satisfy at least one of the following criteria:
1. Experience in the field of formal education or non-formal adult education;
2. Working directly with refugees;
3. Not being member of the consortium.
PROJECT METHODOLOGY
The methodology used will be the traditional project cycle management from one side. We have some social science methodology and finally some formal and nonformal education methods.
PROJECT ACTIVITIES
A part of project management activities, there will be:
– a research;
– a focus group;
– a training;
– a transnational meeting;
– a publication of the guidelines.
The HandBook
