Migration is a difficult process in the life of a person that, many circumstances have led him/her to take this difficult decision. It is of great importance, migrants that arrive in a new country to be supported both from the local community but also from other migrants’ communities, that have already settled in the local society. In the core of migrant integration and inclusion stays education.
New migrants need to be encouraged to learn the local language; to be supporting in learning how the new country’s healthcare system, the legal system, labor system, etc. work; to get to know the local culture but also the workplace culture of the host country. Additionally, settled migrants must be encouraged to share their knowledge on the aforementioned topics to help new migrants to integrate. Unfortunately, non-formal education focusing on the migrants’ integration, is not that developed in many countries and many times their inclusion becomes a very hard process. All these challenges are even bigger and harder when we focus on migrant women, as still many societies face gender discrimination.
As a reaction to the existing challenges in the inclusion of migrants in their new host countries, organizations from several European countries decided to come together to shed light on the contributions of migrant women to their diaspora communities, and to reflect on how their activities could be encouraged and further supported. The project WIDTH (Women In Diaspora communities as champions of learning to live TogetHer) united organizations from Italy, Spain, Greece, Finland, and Belgium.
The project is rooted in several principles: 1) creation of networks; 2) outreach; 3) capacity-building; 4) learner-centered approach and 5) gender dimension. Hence, the first output of the WIDTH project followed those principles and was successfully finalized. The first output is a survey on the implementation of adult education and social inclusion practices starting from network processes, involving women from 5 different countries – Italy, Spain, Greece, Belgium, and Finland.
Each country carried out a survey focused on how women used their experience and knowledge for informal or non-formal learning activities in their diaspora communities and how to reuse them for social and educational inclusion of their diaspora communities. The results of the survey were analyzed and gathered in one file so that to have a form of a report, which will be available for everyone.
The report includes also interviews with migrant women of the partner countries’ local communities. They were asked to share their experiences on the process of inclusion and to explain how they help new migrants in their community for their integration and inclusion. This fact, makes the report a really valuable resource, as it includes real-life examples.
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