Over the past few years, the number of migrants entering European borders appears to be growing. The worldwide social and financial crisis has forced a great number of people out of their countries, disrupting their lives and forcing them to move to places they are not familiar with. Unfortunately, prejudice can have a rather severe impact, seeing as a lot of locals are bothered by the new arrivals.
Helping migrants integrate
It is a given that all migrants regardless of their origin deserve and should receive help from local populations, to get back on their feet. At the same time, locals appear to be reacting negatively to the unknown, making it harder for immigrants to adapt and start over.
Many factors can affect the integration process of migrants in new countries. At the same time, many barriers could slow down the process. The language barrier is one of them as well as the lack of skills necessary to survive in the European labor market.
Strengthening skills
Local communities need to help migrants strengthen their skills and competencies. By helping them learn the language, migrants can open up to new opportunities. They can gain access to more complicated skills, specific to the European labor market that will allow them to build steadier living standards.
Upgrading their skills will not only make them eligible employees, but it will also allow them to explore the possibility of becoming entrepreneurs. Migrant entrepreneurs can bring missing expertise to the field that European businesses might not be familiar with. Business needs in countries outside of Europe are different. By promoting migrant entrepreneurship, the European market will add these needs in the European entrepreneurial scheme thus opening up new channels of communication and potential collaborations.
Adding value to the labor market
Migrant entrepreneurs will also add great value to local labor markets by creating more job positions, something that the European labor market needs but appears to not be able to acquire without extra assistance.
In Europe, a large number of migrants have already established a living and are now a part of society. Others still struggle. The European Commission, to strengthen those communities is ready to allocate budget for innovative actions to be taken. Through the implementation of European Projects under big financial frameworks, the EU promotes migrant integration through the use of Social Entrepreneurship.
Learn about EDU4SENT
One such project is EDU4SENT: Developing the competences of educators to promote social entrepreneurship of adults. The project focuses on empowering migrants and refugees to develop the skills and to get access to knowledge and competences that can enable them to build a solid livelihood, including the possibility of becoming entrepreneurs and thus contribute to further job creation. The project aims to help young adult refugees and asylum seekers develop social entrepreneurship competencies to create their jobs.
To learn more about the objectives of the project and keep up with all the latest news and updates you can visit the project’s official web as well as IED’s project updates page.
