IncluCities Transfer Knowledge Workshop

  Fuenlabrada(ES) - Levadia(GR)

Empowering migrant and refugee social participation and labour market integration

TKW Levadia family

The transfer knowledge workshops are the project's internal sessions, where individual mentoring pairs share the state of play and their concrete action plans with other partners. It's a valuable opportunity to learn from each other and exchange knowledge and experience by taking stock of the work done so far. This cross-over exercise enabled the IncluCities cohort to act as a team. In addition, participants got insights and inspiration from the associations and all eight cities in a supportive and collaborative way.

In this transfer workshop, the teams from Fuenlabrada (FEMP) and Levadia (KEDE) presented their actions around the theme:

"Mobilising citizens to develop decent employment and entrepreneurship tools for migrants and refugees".

Agenda

Durmish Guri, CEMR opened the webinar by reaffirming the interest in the workshops for the partners as well as for CEMR. "Indeed, the CEMR wants to capitalise on such exchanges and integrate the “methodology IncluCities. It is particularly interesting to understand how it works. The dissemination of lessons learned and good practices is the key to the project."

Recap on the national context and on the mentee city and challenges to be tackled

Valia Athanasopoulou, from the Greek association KEDE, explained that local communities are really important for the effective implementation of EU social policies, as civil society and the associations. Some of the main objectives in the migration field for Greece are: to create and maintain an open society that respects human rights; works in a non-discriminatory manner; promote diversity and social cohesion; encourages the contribution of all (to develop the country); think about the social dimension of integration; allow access to work and education. The collaboration with LRGs is one of the action pillars of the Greek strategy as a way to improve the services and the local integration of migrants.

Georgios Kalampokas, from Levadia, emphasised that there is still a problem related to migrants’ inclusion in Greek cities, and Covid-19 crisis did not help. The restrictions created some challenges to making citizens and stakeholders participate and keeping migrants involved (because they either want to leave Greece or do not have relation/confidence with public authorities). It seems difficult to persuade public stakeholders to get involved in projects with migrants. The language barrier is also an obstacle.

Andreas Stamatakis, from the city of Levadia, presented the action plan of the city. 

Following their theme, they identified two main goals: to develop city policies on migrants' integration in collaboration WITH THEM and to empower the local community of migrants and refugees to increase their participation in the policymaking. Creating an action plan, the city defined eight steps:

  • Establish a migrant panel
  • Collect information about the needs of migrants and refugees
  • Support Community Centre to function as a migrant Information Office
  • Provide training programmes for migrants: improve migrants' skills in various fields
  • Provide vocational programmes for migrants/refugees: offer employability opportunities
  • Offer Greek language courses: better if they want to have the citizenship
  • Conduct information campaigns against xenophobia and racism
  • Develop cultural activities within migrants/refugees communities: promote different cultural identities, with positive interaction between migrants and the local population.

The main objective related to the migrant panel is to organise at least one meeting per month with the panel.

Three breakout rooms of the Transfer Knowledge Workshop focused on specific issues:

Empowering the voice of migrants and refugees. This breakout group explored the ways of migrants’ involvement in the planning and implementation of integration policies.

Javier from the Coexistence Board in Fuenlabrada explained there are three approaches to integration: assimilation, multicultural and intercultural integration. This last is where interaction creates a new culture and what Fuenlabrada is doing. Their city council involves migrants, neighbourhood, sports, regional, religious associations etc. It includes 31 entities that represent the diversity of the city. The  Coexistence Board was formally constituted in 2020 and got a city subsidy to encourage and represent the cultural diversity of the city and also to inform and sensitise on diversity. Thirdly, to act as an advisory body for the city, they work with 2nd generation migrants.  They also organise annual laboratories of discussion/colloquia, which is themed on citizens' full rights this year. Policymakers attend and then try to incorporate conclusions into their work. What is missing is the accountability of the policymakers, and they are still working on that. Colleagues from the City of Brussels explained how migrants participate on their end. There is a consultative commission working on different thematic groups like on cultural diversity council where migrants can give their views and recommendations; they hold regular meetings with associations involved, there are other commissions, e.g. on disability, gender, age, international solidarity and Flemish culture: and they can make proposals to city hall. Colleagues from VVSG added that in their current practice, In Flanders, they no longer use this concept of “a consultative body of migrants exclusively”, but they are now making a more explicit difference between citizenship, civic responsibility and policy participation..

Working towards the development of migrants. This breakout group focused on the ways of migrants’ skills improvement and vocational qualifications.

Betty, from Levadia, explained that since 2016, Hestia the state programme for the accommodation of asylum seekers and refugees with UNHCR, financial aid, psycho-social support, admin procedures and access to services.  Social workers help with orientation and registration with the employment office. The economic migrants have been present in the city since late 1980 and have their origin in Albania and Romania. They are getting support from the labour office, registering skills and information about training and employment opportunities. The new migrant panel could provide feedback on how they can better support their needs. Initially, there was a really precarious situation for economic migrants with no support, and newcomers had to rely on their own networks. Betty also underlined that the integration is not the same according to the type of migration (economic or refugees). Thanks to IncluCities, the city has already been able to take a step forward. In Levadia, the perspective of asylum seekers to move on to other countries makes it difficult for local authorities to start integration. They are liaising with migrants & refugees to understand their needs and that is a challenge as well. In addition, being connected with them is also not easy. They try to do it in an informal way, searching for opportunities to discuss to overcome suspicions and mistrust. The idea would be to connect the migrants with the sectors experiencing a labour force shortage. Levadia employment office provides advice and creates contact with potential employers. They have a website where employers can post vacancies and get in touch with suitable candidates - unemployed persons can post their profiles. They pointed out that the agricultural sector has many vacancies and is looking for workers in the migrant & refugee community. The experience in Fuenlabrada is oriented toward mainstreaming. They have no targeted services but the mainstream employment agency, where they created a common database for candidates & for companies with vacancies. The Fuenlabrada also has a good practice related to labour integration, the MILMA project (UIA). They contact companies to identify shortage profiles with companies and design specific training that can help people find their way into the job market.

Information campaigns and cultural development breakout group discussed how to reduce racism and xenophobia as well as to organise common cultural events to promote diverse cultural identities. Questions leading the debate were: Since Levadia has a limited/ poor social participation of migrants in city life, in which way they could enhance the participation of migrants in cultural activities by using them also as a bridge for a more effective inclusion? Based on the experience of migrants' social participation (in Fuenlabrada for example, but it can be the case in Schaerbeek as well) does migrants' active participation in cultural events make a change in the inclusion process? How does any of your cities enhance the participation of migrants in activities that boost social cohesion, foster inclusion and prevent discrimination? What should be the municipality's role in the communication of events, be these cultural events or campaigns – are their invitations, visuals and messages inclusive? What's the role of local media? Are you in the same boat? 

Example from Mechelen, Belgium, with the People make the city exhibition that could be linked to the Exploring our city in Levadia. The idea for Mechelen was to have an online map of the city of Mechelen with all the dots with several stories of different «Mechelaars» linked to a specific place on the map. Objective: break the narrative and shift it beyond the «us and them» as the first step of an antipolarization strategy. Fuenlabrada mentioned their anti rumour strategy, not a specific method to measure results or the impact on the cultural inclusion of people. The idea of Levadia is to use the culture and raise awareness with events/campaigns to change the mindset of those people who still are afraid or are against migrants. Their question was, how long does it take this shift to happen? Advice from Fuenlabrada is: Count on political commitment; Connect with schools and local associations (very important step, most intimate contexts); What are the rumours your city is facing? Tackle them directly with data was the reply. It is also important to have an active calendar with activities like debates and exchanges to find different ways of meeting people. In the Belgian context, they work a lot with the young generation. «Mechelen Colors» is a project starting a dialogue around representation in the media for children and young people. George Floyds' death and black lives matter triggered a positive wave of activities coming directly from the youngest. 

In Levadia, political support from the municipality in 2016 became clearer even after the change of political leadership. They don't have the financial capability to boost the impact of the media that the municipality has. They use social media in particular Facebook as a main tool of communication. Storytelling is one of the best ways to raise the attention of the media. 

Learn more about this mentoring pair: