The event for the successful completion of the project “INtegration: through school into community” was held yesterday, April 25th. The project was implemented for six months with the collaboration among SolidarityNow, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and the General Secretariat for Vulnerable Citizens and Institutional Protection.
The project aimed to provide education and employment access services to migrants and refugees, using the experience of all the partner institutions – SolidarityNow as a member of Civil Society, the largest University of Greece and a state institution.
The event was attended by representatives from the field of education, Civil Society and Ministries.
The three aspects of “INtegration”
The project included language learning – Greek and English -, seminars for frontline professionals (teachers and staff working with unaccompanied minors) and field research on school leak.
“INtegration” was embraced by the beneficiaries in response to a basic and urgent need and succeeded in supporting 190 people to learn Greek and/or English.
Overall, the following were achieved:
– more than 1000 hours of Greek and English language learning
– 65,5 % of the participants were women and mothers
– trainings of 120 frontline professionals
– participation of 100 unaccompanied minors in career/job fair days
Ms. Gelly Aroni, Head of the Unit for Integration and Support of Unaccompanied Minors at the Special Secretariat for the Protection of Unaccompanied Minors of the Ministry of Migration & Asylum, in her brief welcome speech, underlined the importance of the project, emphasizing on unaccompanied and formerly unaccompanied children transitioning to adulthood.
Following this, Ms. Maria Iakovou, Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, highlighted the need behind the project, the importance of collaboration among the institutions and the opportunity it offers to students to comprehend their subject outside the academic framework.
On behalf of SolidarityNow, the project implementation coordinators Kostis Aronis, Giannis Giantsidis, and Mariza Varthalami, presented in detail the activities organized in the framework of “INtegration”, as well as data on the reception of refugees/migrant students in Greek schools, the barriers and challenges, which are also the subject of the project’s field research.
Additionally, professors Evdokia Karava and Vasiliki Mitsikopoulou from the University, stressed the importance of such initiatives as an incentive for mothers to learn Greek themselves -accelerating their social integration- and at the same time to perceive the Greek school as an important aspect of their children’s social development.
*The project “INtegration: Through school into community” is implemented in collaboration with the General Secretariat for Vulnerable Citizens and Institutional Protection and the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and aims at the integration of refugees and migrants by providing education and access to the labor market services for refugee/migrant adults, children, including unaccompanied minors, youth and their parents. The program is funded by the Financial Mechanism of the European Economic Area (EEA) 2014-2021, within the GR-G Program entitled “Capacity Building of National Asylum and Migration Management Systems”. The European and Development Programs Management Agency of the Ministry of Citizen Protection in collaboration with UDI acts as the Programme Operator.