International Cooperation

Transnational partnership „Integrated Ways“

Fluequal has agreed to cooperate with the

• Polish project EDI  - Edukacja dla Integracji and the
• Italian project COOPERA

that is an exchange of experience of different measures for asylum seeker’s integration in the labour market under different state frameworks as well as different points of departure.

Integrated Ways provided very interesting insights for FluEqual in the situation of the refugee-receiving countries Poland and Italy, and the way their structures of migration and their respective state frameworks plan and accomplish measures of asylum seeker’s integration in the labour market. This way, the own perspective could be broadened, ideas and Know How was collected, taken up and checked and the otherwise Austrian-biased perspective could be altered.

For FluEqual, it was of special interest to work with a new EU-member state (Poland) on the one hand and with a country with a long existing tradition as a receiving country (Italy) on the other hand. Poland, therefore, concentrated mostly on the creation of information material for asylum seekers and their legal advice.  With the Italian project Coopera, FluEqual had the chance to realise how it is possible to disburden integration through gainful occupation, but also to understand that qualification measures like occupational preparation and language acquisition get more complicated because of it. Other than in Austria, asylum processes in Italy as well as in Poland usually get carried out essentially faster, that is, most of them reach conclusion within one year. It was interesting to realise that neither in Poland nor in Italy, do the asylum seekers suffer from such a societal devaluation and criminalisation like in Austria’s public opinion, and how such a change in attitude could support the implementation of integration measures.

Below you will find the most important best-practice models of the partner countries, which were presented, discussed and reviewed according to their possibilities of application in Austria:

• Language acquisition was a field in which all of the three partners carried out certain measures. Those were compared in detail and revealed great differences due to the different social conditions in the respective countries of origin. The setting in Poland, which is based on thematic short courses for individual evenings, can be a suggestion for Austrian migrant’s courses in order to improve the language skills of those people, who have been living in Austria already for a couple of years. The Italian model, with its 60 course units and its diverse stages of entrance as well as language diagnosis tests, impressed through its structural body, is however not applicable for Salzburg’s conditions, as the target groups in the individual regions are too small and as local accessibility and cost reduction have to be treated with priority. Altogether, our idea potential for the development of designs for future language acquisition measures was enriched through this insight in different models.
• The Polish model with its broad legal advice in the reception centres was considered in great detail by FluEqual, as it seems to be a qualitative very valuable but at the same time cost effective model. Even though FluEqual did not offer any measures in the area of legal advice, the Polish model was presented at the congress and discussed with legal advisors from Salzburg and representatives from the University of Salzburg. From their point of view, adopting a similar approach in Salzburg is not possible, since the accreditation within the study programme, the significance for the students as well as the demand are not given to the same extent as in Poland. For the direct application on FluEqual’s advice service measures, essential inspirations were collected, for example the adoption of high quality voluntary work through accordant formation and training; students as a potential source for voluntary tasks, the broadness as regards contents of the advice on offer, the language competence of the advisers and the work directly at clients home in the reception centres.
• The Italian project Coopera practises a model for occupational preparation which is very well structured and based on various steps. Especially the screening of skills and the development of a practical training in the various companies were very interesting for FluEqual. We think that this model provides great preparation for a successful occupational integration, applicable in Austria as soon as the labour market will be (hopefully) opened for asylum seekers.
• Vice versa, the partner projects in Italy and Poland also showed interest for the models introduced by FluEqual, including the participative IT work, the model of public service employment and the work on-site with locals in form of dialogue processes. FluEqual’s integration measures received high acknowledgment from the partner countries.

 

THE RESULTS AND PRODUCTS OF "INTEGRATED WAYS" IN DETAIL:


Steering Committee
The Steering Committee served for the creation of the cooperation, as well as its planning and supervision of its mutual activities in Integrated Ways. These are the meetings that took place:

 27th – 28th March 2006 in Krakow/Poland
 17th – 18th  October 2006 in Salzburg/AT
 22nd January 2007 in Krakow/Poland
 7th June 2007 in Citta della Pieve/IT.

Representative and contact from FluEqual for the transnational cooperation was, how agreed on in the TCA, Mrs Andrea Stadlmair MA. FluEqual has participated in all meetings of the Steering Committee with one or two persons.

Transnational Integration Manual
A handbook with contributions to the various national conditions for asylum seekers and measures for their integration to the labour market in Poland, Italy and Austria.

Study about the legal situation of asylum seekers in Poland, Italy and Austria
In order to understand the individual measures in the different countries, one needs to achieve a basic understanding of the asylum seeker’s legal and social situation, which strongly varies between Italy, Poland and Austria. The study offers an interesting comparison of the course of the asylum processes, the involved authorities, detention arrest and deportation as well as the access to the labour market in Poland and Austria.

Internet portal
In order to reach a European-wide diffusion of the transnational products, the establishment of a multilingual internet portal was planned: http://www.coopera.eu/integrated_ways3.htm.

Exchange of trainers
In order to achieve direct insight in the procedure of integration measures, an exchange programme for staff members was organised.

Exchange of project’s staff
For members in the DPs that inhabit tasks of planning, administrating and organising, this exchange programme was applied in order to generate a rich pool of possibilities for qualification- and occupational preparation measures for asylum seekers in the DPs.

Gender Mainstreaming
As Gender Mainstreaming is seen as an important principle by all DPs, an exchange of the diverse activities and experiences around this topic was performed.

Congress in Austria